Book Talk Event - The Rural Lawyer - Prsented by Professor Hannah Haksgaard - October 9, 2025 at Nebraska College of Law

In Indian Country Lawyers: A South Dakota Survery, authors Hannah Haksgaard and Bryce Drapeaux (both South Dakota Law) address the access to justice crisis experienced by Native American communities in South Dakota. They present data on the lack of available, licensed Native American attorneys on and near reservations to develop an accurate understanding of the extent of the shortage.

In Learning the Rural Practice of Law, author Ashli R. Tomisich (Wyoming Law) discusses the lack of experiential learning in the law school curriculum and how this gap contributes to students being unprepared to enter rural practice.

In One Crisis or Two Problems? Disentangling Rural Access to Justice and the Rural Attorney Shortage authors Daria F. Page and Brian R. Farrell (University of Iowa College of Law) examine the relationship between rural access to justice and a growing shortage of rural attorneys. In particular, the authors argue that conflating rural access to justice with a shrinking number of rural attorney’s fails to effectively address rural justice access.

In Pretrial Justice in Out-of-the-Way Places – Including Rural Communities in the Bail Reform Conversation, Jordan Gross (Idaho College of Law) addresses bail reform movements and advocates for the implementation of varied approaches best suited to each jurisdiction’s “constitutional limitations” as well as the individual resources of each community. The author presents a high-level view of bail reform strategies followed by a state-specific inquiry into the bail reform tools implemented by rural communities in Montana.

In The Scandal of Particularity: A New Approach to Rural Attorney Shortages and Access to Justice, author Michele Statz (Minnesota Medical School/Law) discusses the challenges of fully understanding the rural attorney shortage and its impact on rural communities through interviews from those involved in the justice system in various rural and tribal communities.

An announcement of South Dakota Law Review’s upcoming Symposium on Rural Lawyers, marking the 10-year anniversary of South Dakota's Project Rural Practice.

This digest summarizes recent empirical research by Young and Billings on civil access to justice needs, considering the impact of intersectional identity factors from queerness to disability, rurality, and parental status.