The Practice Magazine

Our bi-monthly magazine showcases the latest academic research on the legal profession. Each issue explores a specific theme and features the latest scholarship and original analysis. Written for busy practitioners and those interested in the global legal profession.

Legal Deserts

Current issue August/September 2025

Access to legal representation in rural areas has become increasingly difficult. How are states, legal aid organizations, and the profession accounting for this real loss?

August/September 2025

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Introducing the August 2025 Issue

Culture Career paths Politics Talent Well-Being

Across the United States and around the world, rural areas have suffered from brain drain. The result is not just towns without lawyers, but also towns without doctors, accountants, teachers, and more.

From the Editors

A note book on a table lies splayed open to a blank page with a pen lying across it askew.

Incentivizing Rural Practice

Hannah Haksgaard

A2J Culture Career paths Politics Public interest

Ten years after South Dakota first launched its Rural Attorney Recruitment Program, Hannah Haksgaard reviews the data. In this excerpt from her 2025 book, The Rural Lawyer: How to Incentivize Rural Law Practice and Help Small Communities Thrive (Cambridge University Press 2025), Haksgaard documents what it took for South Dakota to really invest—and whether or not the program can be called a success in the fight against legal deserts.

Lead Article

Mapping Legal Deserts

Pro bono Professional Identity Public interest Regulation Talent

Three researchers map legal deserts in the United States, showcasing why documenting legal access remains challenging. Why build such a complex portrait of intersecting need? It helps policymakers figure out where dollars should go.

Tribal Lay Advocates Expand Access to Justice

Alternative service providers Culture Career paths Future of law Public interest

Indigenous peoples in the United States on reservations allow non-lawyers—Tribal lay advocates—to provide legal services in many civil cases, a vital service in areas where there are often not enough lawyers both geographically and barred in Tribal courts. Could such community-centered justice initiatives be a model for other states interested in licensing non-lawyers?

Edge of Glacier National Park and Blackfeet Nation.

Tracing the Threads of Rural Legal Scholarship

A2J Culture Career paths Law schools Professional Identity

Scholarship on the rural attorney shortage is numerous. We provide a glance at the rich work being done around achieving meaningful rural access to justice, starting with some of the important work to come out of the South Dakota Law Review.

From the Journals

A book is open and the pages are being flipped through while a light shines beneath.

Confronting Antirural Bias

Career paths Law schools Professional Identity Public interest Students

Legal educators should do more to "chip away at what has become an antirural bias by holding out success stories and showing students what it looks like to forge your own path in a rural community," says Lisa Pruitt, an influential scholar of rural studies and the law at UC Davis.

Speaker’s Corner