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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Past, Present, And Future Of Rural Northern New England: A Study Of The Demographics Crisis And How It Affects The Rural Lawyer Shortage, Christopher Chavis Aug 2019

The Past, Present, And Future Of Rural Northern New England: A Study Of The Demographics Crisis And How It Affects The Rural Lawyer Shortage, Christopher Chavis

Maine Law Review

Like most of rural America, Northern New England is facing a shortage of lawyers in its rural spaces. The three states are facing an aging bar and demographic trends that indicate that this will only continue. The situation is already dire. The Northern New England states currently rank among the oldest states in the country and there are counties where young lawyers are an almost extinct species. The current trends are not unprecedented. As one of the first areas to industrialize, New England saw its young people leave the countryside early and start to flock to growing cities. As the …


Gideon In The Desert: An Empirical Study Of Providing Counsel To Criminal Defendants In Rural Places, Andrew Davies, Alyssa Clark Aug 2019

Gideon In The Desert: An Empirical Study Of Providing Counsel To Criminal Defendants In Rural Places, Andrew Davies, Alyssa Clark

Maine Law Review

Access to counsel for criminal defendants is a continuing challenge in rural localities, notwithstanding the mandates of Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. In this Article, we first review the state of the law on access to counsel in criminal cases, noting the latitude allowed to state and local governments in their policy decisions. We then examine empirical approaches to measuring access to counsel and describe in detail both the law and the data on this issue from the state of Texas. We present exploratory analyses of those data comparing rural and urban places for various aspects of access to counsel, including rules …


Viewing Access To Justice For Rural Mainers Of Color Through A Prosecutorial Lens, Maybell Romero Aug 2019

Viewing Access To Justice For Rural Mainers Of Color Through A Prosecutorial Lens, Maybell Romero

Maine Law Review

Rural areas throughout the country, including those in Maine, are beginning to navigate the challenges and benefits of burgeoning communities of color. District Attorneys’ offices in the state, however, have done little to prepare for this major demographic shift. Maine district attorneys must expand their understanding of their duties to do justice and assure access to justice by better serving rural Mainers of color. While a number of scholars have focused on the legal challenges communities of color face in urban environments as well as those faced by what have been presumed to be White communities in rural areas, this …


Rural Practice As Public Interest Work, Hannah Haksgaard Aug 2019

Rural Practice As Public Interest Work, Hannah Haksgaard

Maine Law Review

As the rural lawyer shortage continues to grow, rural states and communities must find new ways of attracting law students and graduates to rural practice. This Article explores incentives based on conceptualizing rural private practice as public interest work. Rural lawyers provide public interest lawyering through pro bono cases, mixed practices, community service, and even through providing fee-paid services in rural communities. The Article asserts that law schools and rural communities can capitalize on this view to recruit new lawyers and argues that federal loan forgiveness programs should be expanded to cover rural lawyers.


Foreword, Mac Walton Editor-In-Chief Aug 2019

Foreword, Mac Walton Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

No abstract provided.