There are 44 counties in the United States with 0 lawyers

181 counties with only 1 or 2

22 states have a lawyer in every county

Those 44 counties are in 14 states

New York has 9.5 lawyers per 1000 people.
Arizona, Arkansas, and South Carolina have 2.1 per 1000.

Nebraska tops the list with 11 counties.

Sorry: 13 states. Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas.

New York City has 14 lawyers per 1000 people! Orleans County has less than 1 per 1000.
(per https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/abas-profession-profile-shows-a-dearth-of-lawyers-in-rural-areas-and-attorney-debt-struggles)

40% of counties in the United States (or the equivalent borough/parish/etc.) have less than 1 lawyer per 1000 people

These numbers include lawyers that aren't available to provide legal services to the general public for hire (government employees like prosecutors, PDs etc etc)

Also: this doesn't *necessarily* mean that there are no lawyers serving those counties. Just that there are no lawyers based in those counties. It doesn't change the fact that there are people who are h o u r s from the nearest lawyer

*disclaimer* (?) I got my numbers from https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/news/2020/07/potlp2020.pdf but I counted myself - some don't match exactly what they counted but they're pretty close

This thread is embarrassingly disorganized y'all, my bad. In my defense my original intent was not to make a thread?

Anyway, the ABA model rules of professional conduct say that lawyers should aspire to 50 pro bono hours per year but I don't think it should end there. Judges are seen as the pinnacle of the legal system and, even though they can't represent people, I think they should also help

with the access to justice problem. There's a huge need for pro bono or inexpensive legal services, but it's not just a question of affordability - it's a geographical problem. There are more than enough people who could use help that don't require lawyers to travel a distance

to hearings, etc. Judges should allow lawyers to appear remotely more often, imo, bc there's absolutely no incentive to travel for pro bono work as it is. I think remote appearances could go a long way towards helping with the geographic problem.