Lacking lawyers, Plains states try new rural staffing tacks

Modeled after the Rural Health Opportunities Program, which recruits rural students to become small-town doctors, Nebraska's program targets high-achieving students with plans to go to law school, offering full-tuition undergraduate scholarships to three rural Nebraska colleges:

Like the medical program, the rural lawyer program does not include a requirement that the students practice in rural areas after law school.

"The rural health program reports about a 60 percent return on investment, meaning about 60 percent of the students return to rural areas to practice medicine," Maul said.

South Dakota is believed to be the first state to pay lawyers to practice in rural areas, starting in 2013 and offering an annual subsidy of 90 percent of the cost of a year at the University of South Dakota Law School to live and practice in rural communities.

Since the program began, it has placed 17 attorneys in rural counties that have a population of 10,000 or less, according to Suzanne Star, director of policy and legal services for the South Dakota State Court Administrator's Office.

In southwestern Iowa, some counties have only one or two attorneys — and they're rapidly approaching retirement age, said attorney Philip Garland, 71, the chairman of the Iowa State Bar Association's Rural Practice Committee.