Midwest law schools counseling students to 'go rural' in search of jobs, where they're needed most

Kay Oskvig, second-year University of Iowa student in
 Garner, where she clerks. (WSJ photo by Jenn Ackerman)

In parts of the rural Midwest, small towns are itching for lawyers, writes Ashby Jones of The Wall Street Journal. "The job market is good for lawyers in the western and more rural parts of Nebraska, in towns like Ogallala and Scottsbluff," said Susan Poser, dean of the law school at the University of Nebraska. "We're trying to make students more aware of those opportunities," she said. Last year, the University of Nebraska's law school created a special program of study for its students focused on practicing solo or in small firms after they graduate. The University of Kansas law school a few months ago launched a "rural and solo practice program," which teaches students the basics of each.

The rural areas' biggest selling point is jobs. As of February, the employment rate for students who graduated in 2011 was about 86 percent, the lowest for a class since 1994, according to the National Association for Law Placement. In many ways these law schools are following the lead of the medical profession, reports Jones, which has long encouraged students to practice in rural settings with doctor shortages, and often subsidized them to do so: "The surfeit of lawyers in the rural Midwest largely boils down to demographics: Educated young people raised in the region are fleeing for the cultural and financial opportunities of larger cities, both in their own states and farther afield."

"Twenty years ago, Chadron had 10 lawyers; Alliance had a dozen," said Scottsbluff lawyer Howard Olsen, a former president of the Nebraska Bar Association. "Now, they each just have two or three." Olsen said that clients in rural Nebraska who used to find a lawyer across the street may now drive "50, 60, sometimes 100 miles" to find one. In small towns, lawyers' annual pay tends to start in the low-to-mid-five figures, but advantages can twinkle in the eye of the beholder. "The cost of living, the pace of living and the variety of practice, to name a few," said Marianne B. Culhane, dean of the law school at Creighton University in Omaha. "Plus, no long commutes." (Read more)