New lawyers — saddled sometimes with $100,000 in student debt — can’t afford to practice where people can’t afford to pay them. Plus, the rural lifestyle doesn’t always appeal to urban-bred attorneys.
While the poor across Georgia struggle to get legal help, the challenges are amplified in rural areas with greater poverty and higher unemployment rates. And, unlike in metro Atlanta, rural Georgians may have to travel upwards of 50 miles to find an attorney.
State, federal and bar association officials talk periodically about ways to boost rural legal representation. They eye subsidies and loan-forgiveness programs that have increased the number of doctors practicing in rural areas. Money, though, particularly with post-recession austerity, is hard to come by.
A half-dozen Georgia counties have no private-practice lawyers, according to the State Bar of Georgia. Another five counties tally only one. Meanwhile, 81 percent of the state’s 15,000 lawyers work in metro Atlanta, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, where slightly more than half of the state’s population resides.
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