Rural areas face declining lawyer numbers

James Pedersen has spent the past two decades writing wills, preparing tax returns and serving as Ringgold County's judicial magistrate. Now he's ready to retire.

Problem is, no one wants to buy his successful rural Iowa law firm.

Pedersen, 66, is the only private practice lawyer with a full-time office in Mount Ayr and one of just two active lawyers in Ringgold County.

"(My wife and I) seriously considered just relocating to Colorado, and I put my practice up for sale," he said. "I got no responses whatsoever. None."

Pedersen's plight highlights what Iowa lawyers and judges believe is a growing problem: Older lawyers retire from small-town practices while freshly licensed law school grads saddled with debt seek jobs in urban areas, leaving rural areas without attorneys. The diminishing number of lawyers in small communities means residents who want face-to-face legal advice go unserved or must drive to other counties.

It's not uncommon for people in Mount Ayr to travel to Osceola, 45 minutes away, to get legal services, said Karen Bender, a Ringgold County economic development official.

Polk County — Iowa's most populated county — has 2,517 attorneys, or one for every 171 residents, a Des Moines Register review of a state database of active attorneys in each county shows. In addition, 75 percent of Iowa's attorneys work in 11 counties, all with large urban population centers, the review shows.

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By contrast, Ringgold County — in the southernmost tier of Iowa counties and the state's second-least populated county — has only two attorneys, or one for every 2,565 residents, the review shows.

In 1936, Mount Ayr had six law firms, according to a farm directory that Pedersen bought at an auction. That was decades before smaller farms were swallowed up in the farm crisis of the 1980s, a period that left many counties, especially in southern Iowa, economically scarred, Pedersen said.

"We take so many things for granted in our world, in our society and in our communities," Pedersen said. "And one of these days … people are going to say, 'Why don't we have any attorneys here?' You've got to fight for those things."

Issue of having few rural lawyers not new

The declining number of lawyers in rural Iowa has been discussed for a decade or more, said Phil Garland, who chairs the Iowa State Bar Association's rural practice committee. Still, the decline has not captured the attention of the public or policymakers in Iowa like similar trends in other professions have, some say.

When rural residents complained about shortages of doctors, Iowa lawmakers established a loan repayment program for physicians who spend five years in a rural town, said Chip Baltimore, a Boone Republican who serves as the in-house attorney for a bank.

"Sometimes I think it's a matter of priorities, and I don't think the legal profession is put on the same priority level by the Legislature as physicians and teachers and some of these other things that we need in rural Iowa, too," he said. "In all honesty, I'm not hearing any citizens complaining about the lack of lawyers in their communities."

In Mount Ayr, which could lose its one full-time lawyer if Pedersen retires without a replacement, residents are more focused on finding dental care since the town's lone dentist recently retired, Pedersen said.

The Ringgold County Development Corp. is trying to recruit manufacturers to the area to grow Mount Ayr's industrial park, not working to bring in more attorneys or other professionals, said Bender, the economic development coordinator.

"It's probably something we do need to address actually," she said. "We focus more on the industrial part of it than we have the professional part of it. … Sometimes you don't think of those things until maybe it's a little too late to think about them."

Lawyers work with community groups

The loss of small-town lawyers will affect rural Iowa in ways not immediately noticed, Pedersen and others say.

For instance, Pedersen said he volunteered legal knowledge to help set up the Ringgold County Teen Center and to reopen Mount Ayr's historic Princess Theater. He also served for six years on the local hospital board.

"You will see lawyers and bankers on the library board, you'll see them on hospital boards," said Frank Carroll, a former Iowa State Bar Association president, who practices in Des Moines. "So having that person present in the community … helps energize the community or at least can provide a resource for energizing the community."

Iowa's situation mirrors similar trends in neighboring Nebraska and South Dakota, though the problem is more "acute" in those states, said Garland, the bar association's rural practice committee chairman. Nebraska has 12 counties with no lawyers, according to that state's bar association.

The issue was highlighted in Iowa this year in a debate over whether the state should continue requiring graduates of Iowa's two law schools to take a bar exam. Instead, graduates of the University of Iowa and Drake University's law schools would take more Iowa-specific law courses, pass an ethics exam and be allowed to begin practicing after graduation.

Advocates said the plan would eliminate a major barrier that keeps new law school graduates out of rural practices: student debt. Starting salaries are traditionally lower in rural firms, forcing graduates to concentrate in cities like Des Moines. Garland, though, said lower costs of living in small towns help balance financial concerns.

The Iowa Supreme Court did not approve the proposal.

Garland has been key in another initiative aimed at bringing young lawyers to rural Iowa — a summer clerkship program that gives law students a taste of working in a small-town law firm over a summer. In the first year — the summer of 2012 — 15 University of Iowa law students submitted resumes.

The goal: Convincing students over the course of a summer clerkship that rural Iowa has opportunities for them, Garland said. Frequently, a young law student or lawyer's apprehension about working at a small-town practice can be traced to a lack of familiarity with rural communities, said Kay Oskvig, a recently licensed attorney who did a clerkship with Garland's firm.

"To think about living in a town that has as many people as their high school graduating class, that's really strange," she said. "It's really a culture shock. … It's a transition, but I think it's usually a good one."

Young lawyer likes variety of work

Familiarity helped bring Brad Sloter, 27, back to a firm in his hometown of Charles City, the county seat of Floyd County, which has 18 active lawyers.

Sloter, who graduated from law school in May 2013, knew he wanted to return to his rural Iowa hometown at some point. He assumed it would come after several years practicing somewhere else.

But the summer before he graduated, he took an internship at the Charles City firm where he now works, Noah, Smith & Schuknecht. He met his now-fiancée the same summer, alleviating one of his concerns about returning to his hometown.

"That was a concern of mine, whether or not I'd be able to find a spouse because eventually I wanted to be able to start a family," he said.

Back in his hometown, Sloter said he does a variety of real estate and probate work, as well as legal work for a bank. Working for a smaller firm, he's able to have more control over his work life than he might have at a larger firm in Des Moines or elsewhere, he said.

"I just wanted to have more control right off the bat for my future," he said. "To a certain extent, you can set your own hours … I think you have a better opportunity for a work-life balance in a rural town."