Recruitment Strategies: Educational Pipelines and Financial Incentives

A basic tenet of American liberty is that no one is jailed without access to the courts and a lawyer to represent them. But there are many political and practical obstacles to realizing it. Across rural America, one problem lies at the heart of these obstacles: there are no lawyers. 

In 2020, there were roughly four lawyers of any kind for every 1,000 people in America.  But lawyers were concentrated in cities, so that, in about 40% of all counties, there was not even one lawyer per 1,000 people.  In 54 counties there were no lawyers at all.  Rural populations are getting smaller and older,  and when their lawyers retire, they are finding there is no one to replace them. 

In these “legal deserts,” it is difficult for people to get help with everyday issues like reviewing a contract or crises like keeping their home. In criminal legal deserts, the effects are severe and far-reaching; when no lawyer is available to prosecute or defend a case, people stay in jail without legal recourse or are released without consequences. Communities lose trust in the courts.

Fortunately, the medical and educational fields provide proven models for greening criminal legal deserts. To attract criminal lawyers to rural areas, states and their partners should build educational pipelines, starting in high school, or earlier, and offer compelling economic incentives that make rural practice a straightforward choice.

 

A. The Rural Higher Education Gap

A rural upbringing is among the strongest predictors of rural professional practice.[i] Yet, a peculiar paradox decreases the likelihood that people from rural areas will become doctors, lawyers, or even college graduates. On the one hand, rural public high school graduation rates are roughly comparable to suburban rates (89%) and noticeably higher than urban rates (82%).[ii]  On the other hand, rural students are less likely to attend college than students from other areas. Only 71% of rural students enroll in college, as compared to 76% of suburban students, and 73% of urban students.[iii] 

Absent some intervention, this higher-education gap is likely to grow. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2019, only 25% of rural residents and 22% of “town” residents had a bachelor’s degree, as compared to 37% of urban and suburban residents.[iv] This gap is even larger for younger adults—25% of rural adults between 25 and 34 years old have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 44% among the urban young adults.[v]

No single factor accounts for this rural education gap. Sheer access is one factor. Rural students are often geographically isolated from, or entirely deprived of, programs that give them postsecondary credit.[vi] Availing themselves of courses farther afield means contending with a dearth of transportation options[vii] and uncertain access to high-speed internet.[viii] College-readiness is another hurdle. Rural students are less likely to have college-educated parents to guide them through application and attendance.[ix] Their schools may also have fewer resources to help prepare them to apply. For example, a 2016 report found that access to even one counselor can increase four-year college enrollment by 10%,[x] but 14% of rural schools lacked a school counselor (compared to 6% of urban schools),[xi] Besides counselors, rural schools’ smaller budgets may mean more difficulties in recruiting and retaining high quality teachers who can assist their students in making the transition to college.[xii]

Rural students who are reluctant to move from their close-knit communities may have to choose between staying close to home or attending college.[xiii] Rural areas tend to be both physical and online educational deserts.” (Physical education deserts have no college or university, or only one public broad-access community college, within 25 miles. Online education deserts have no broadband access.)[xiv] Indeed, rural residents account for 82% of people who live in the United States’ education deserts.[xv] So, rural students who commit to retaining their rural residence may have to forego a college education.

Rural students can also be priced out of higher education. Higher education costs have grown considerably, such that students borrow, on average, over $35,000 for college[xvi] and over $100,000 for law school.[xvii] These costs may be daunting for rural students. Rural areas, on average, have higher rates of poverty than urban areas, [xviii] and first-time rural college students use financial aid at a higher rate than their urban peers.[xix]


[i] D. G. Patterson, et al., Growing a rural family physician workforce: The contributions of rural background and rural place of residency training, 59 Health Servs. Rsch. 1, (2023); A. B. Parlier, et al., The Road to Rural Primary Care: A Narrative Review of Factors That Help Develop, Recruit, and Retain Rural Primary Care Physicians, 93 Acad. Med. 1, at 130–140 (2018); see also R. L. Phillips, Jr, et al., Specialty and Geographic Distribution of the Physician Workforce: What Influences Medical  Student and Resident Choices?, Robert Graham Ctr., (2009); K. Burbach, UNMC’s impact on rural Nebraska, U. Neb. Med. Ctr., (Jan. 28, 2019) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[ii] For the years 2019-20. National Center for Education Statistics, Public High School Graduation Rates in Rural Areas, (2023) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026]. But, National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey for 2021-22, [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026]; an opposite trend in private school graduation rates of 94.7% for rural students, 94.6% for suburban students, and 97.4% for “city” students. But rural students are significantly less likely to attend private school than their suburban and urban counterparts. For 2021-22 (the most recent available years), 5.6% of rural elementary and secondary school students attended private schools, as compared to 10.3% of suburban students, and 13.7% of “city” students. National Center for Education Statistics, 205.90 Private School Education, (2023) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026]. In the most remote rural communities, private school enrollment rates were only 2.9%. Id.

[iii] National Center for Education Statistics, 302.46 Enrollment Rates, (2019) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[iv] National Center for Education Statistics, Educational Attainment in Rural Areas, Condition of Education, (2022) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[v] Id. See also A. Sanders, Educational attainment improved in rural America but educational gap with urban areas grew for bachelor's degrees and higher, Charts of Note, USDA Economic Research Service, (Mar. 3, 2023) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026]. “In 2017–21, the share of working-age adults (ages 25–64) with at least a bachelor’s degree was 37 percent in urban areas and 21 percent in rural areas, while the share of younger adults ages 25–44 with at least a bachelor’s degree was 40 percent in urban areas and 22 percent in rural areas.”

[vi] National School Boards Association, Educational Equity for Rural Students: Out of the Pandemic, but Still Out of the Loop, Part 3: Thinking Broadly and Deeply about Rural Student Achievement and Teacher Pipelines, Center for Public Education, at 33 (2023). (discussing unequal access to dual enrollment programs that provide both high school and college credit); P. D. Grant, et al., Access Is Progress: Understanding Rural Secondary Student Access and Outcomes of Advanced Placement Courses, 15 Eur. J. Investig. Health Psych. Educ. 7 (2025). (finding rural schools are significantly less likely to offer Advanced Placement courses).

[vii] U.S. Department of Transportation, The Critical Role of Rural Communities in the U.S. Transportation System, (Mar. 17, 2025) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[viii] E. A. Vogels, Some digital divides persist between rural, urban and suburban America, Pew Research Center, (Aug. 19, 2021) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[ix] D. Quintero & Y. Gu, Rural schools need career counselors, Brookings, (July 13, 2019) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[x] M. Hurwitz & J. Howell, Measuring the Impact of High School Counselors on College Enrollment, College Board Advocacy & Policy Center, (2013).

[xi] D. J. Gagnon & M. J. Mattingly, Most U.S. School Districts Have Low Access to School Counselors, National Issue Brief #108, Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire, at 3 (2016).

[xiii] P. J. Carr & M. J. Kefalas, Hollowing out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America, (2009); J. Sherman & R. Sage, Sending Off All Your Good Treasures: Rural Schools, Brain-Drain, and Community Survival in the Wake of Economic Collapse - ProQuest, 26 J. of Rsch. in Rural Edu. 11, (2011).

[xiv] Id.

[xvi] M. Hanson, Average Student Loan Debt for a Bachelor’s Degree, Education Data Initiative, (Nov. 24, 2025) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[xvii] LSAC Law School Transparency, Law School Debt in the United States, (2026) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[xviii] T. Farrigan, Data show U.S. poverty rates in 2019 higher in rural areas than in urban for racial/ethnic groups, Charts of Note, USDA Economic Research Service, (Aug. 23, 2021) [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

[xix] National Center for Education Statistics, Financial Aid: What is the percent of full-time, first-time students awarded financial aid?, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, [Last accessed: Jun. 16, 2026].

B. A Roadmap to Effective Strategies for Recruiting Rural Criminal Lawyers

The road to law practice is long and expensive. Would-be lawyers must obtain a college degree, sit the Law School Admission Test (LSAT); gain admission to, then graduate from, law school; take a professional ethics exam; and pass the bar exam. Creating pipelines and financial incentives that bridge these phases is an indispensable step to increasing the number of rural lawyers. Happily, the medical profession has provided a blueprint for these measures. Medical practice, like law practice, requires many years of credentialing, from an undergraduate degree, to a standardized graduate school admissions test, to medical school, to licensure exams, residency, and fellowship. Rural medical candidates have a number of tools to help them navigate this path that their legal counterparts still lack. 

    1.  Educational Pipelines

Successful education pipelines aimed at creating new rural professionals share several common characteristics. Programs with demonstrated success usually rely on strategies that:

  • Engage in targeted outreach to rural students, exposing students to college opportunities, teaching them about professional career pathways, and providing them students with academic readiness courses and college campus tours.
  • Help rural students navigate the complicated college applications process for both admissions and financial aid.
  • Create college-to-graduate school partnerships with graduate schools in rural shortage professions such as healthcare or teaching.[i]
  • Locate a “meaningful portion” of graduate students’ professional education in rural areas.[ii]
  • Offer financial assistance with the costs of college and graduate school.

Many rural professional pipeline programs combine these strategies. Some of the most promising programs are in the medical space, rather than the legal space.

The University of Alabama’s healthcare and dentistry pipelines begin in junior year of high school, with summer coursework for students interested in healthcare and dentistry through the RHS (Rural Health Scholars) and RHDS (Rural Dental Health Scholars) programs. Students come to campus for the summer to take college-level Chemistry and Creative Writing courses. They receive free tuition, books, housing, access to campus facilities, and food. High School Seniors intending to attend college are eligible for the MOORE (Medical Opportunities and Outreach in Rural Education) program. Through MOORE, students again spend a summer at the University of Alabama, enjoying the same benefits available through RHS and RHDS. They take college courses and field trips related to rural medical practice, and receive training in how to succeed in pre-medical majors in college. The MOORE program aims to act as a funnel to the Rural Medical Scholars Program, a pipeline from college to medical school.

Other healthcare pipeline programs begin during a student’s college years, but continue through professional school. The University of Missouri’s Rural Medicine Pathway helps both college students and working professionals from rural backgrounds apply to medical school. Program participants receive regular admissions coaching and are exposed to rural clinical practice. Other incentives and supports include discounted MCAT preparation courses, reimbursement of medical school application fees, and evaluation for a medical school interview.

Some of the most successful programs offer dedicated rural practice tracks. For example, students in University of Illinois’ four-year doctoral pharmacy RPHARM Program have an extensive rural curriculum that includes “six interprofessional elective courses, three rural healthcare professional shadowing experiences, a community-based research project, and three advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) in a rural Illinois community.”[iii]   RPHARM students also shadow rural pharmacists, attend programs about rural health care issues, such as “Agricultural Hazards, Toxicology, & Farm Safety” and “Rural Ethics Scenarios.” An evaluation of RPHARM’s first decade concluded that between 33 and 57% of RPHARM graduates serve in rural locations.[iv]

At Pennsylvania’s Thomas Jefferson Medical School’s Physician Shortage Area Program (PSAP), there are reserved admissions slots for undergraduates from rural areas who intend to practice rural medicine. PSAP students receive mentoring and help with clinic placements. PSAP graduates are eight times as likely as their peers to become rural family doctors, and 79% of PSAP graduates remain in rural medical practice for 11-16 years.

College- and university-based programs for rural teachers appear likely to produce similar results. The Rural Student Success Initiative (RSSI), at Texas A&M University draws on its AgriLife Extension Service and network of county agents, community leaders, school districts, and national nonprofits. The program provides high school students with campus tours, part-time local college coaches, college fairs, and financial aid application assistance, all with a focus on Texas’ flagship universities, community colleges, and technical schools. RSSI also offers resources to students’ families, teachers, and guidance counselors. While more evaluation is underway, early RSSI results are promising: between 2019 to 2020, ten of the first cohort of 11 rural school districts saw applications to college and postsecondary training increase. In eight schools there was an increase of five percent or greater.

The University of Kansas’ Scholars in Rural Health program offers a college-to-graduate school blueprint that could easily be adapted to recruit rural law scholars. Interested upper class KU college students are assigned to a mentor, who they shadow for 100 hours over the summer. Participants attend regular program meetings and complete a capstone project. Program graduates who receive a satisfactory Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) score are automatically admitted to the University of Kansas Medical Center.

In medical school, the pipeline continues with programming by the KU Medical Center’s Office of Rural Medical Education. 

  • All years: Students can join the Rural Medicine Interest Group, the largest student interest group at KU Medical Center. 
  • First Year: Students can spend a week with a rural family doctor during a Rural Enrichment Week.
  • Second Year: Students can complete clinical training and practice-based research in rural primary care through the Summer Training Option in Rural Medicine (STORM).
  • Third Year: Students can elect a Rural Clerkship (up to six weeks) or Extended Rural Clerkship (up to 12 months) for their required third-year clerkship (clinical experience).
  • Fourth Year: All students are required to complete a month-long Rural Preceptorship, during which they are hosted by one of 200 rural doctors who serve as volunteer faculty, or “preceptors.” Host sites are expected to provide housing. Students can then complete a two-week Rural Family Medicine Elective in a rural community.

Policymakers, educators, and practitioners are slowly realizing the importance of developing their legal pipelines. Scrappy startups have launched rural legal pipeline initiatives often in partnership with state supreme courts, state bar associations, and state legislators. These innovative new programs must be funded, studied, replicated, and scaled to meet the growing national need. They must also be expanded to include a strong focus on pipelines for prosecutors and indigent defense providers.

Legal awareness programs for high school students abound, and most involve exposure to criminal legal practice. State bar associations,[i] and non-profits,[ii] as well as colleges, universities, and law schools,[iii] offer mock trial programs or ‘law academy’ programs that teach students about legal practice.’[iv]

Many of these programs offer students a robust exposure to criminal law. Mock trial programs often use criminal law fact patterns to educate students about the adversary process. Using simulated case materials, students study fact patterns, interview ‘witnesses’, and serve as prosecutors, defenders, judges, witnesses, and juries in mock criminal trials.[v] And while some high school legal academies also showcase civil practice models, many (such as Street Law programs) also explore criminal law.[vi]  Unfortunately, it can be challenging for moot court programs and legal academies to reach rural students.

State and national moot court competitions often require significant time commitments from volunteer attorneys.[vii] In rural legal deserts, lawyer scarcity may mean prevent schools from organizing student participation. Programs that are based on urban college and university campuses usually require on-campus participation.[viii] This may make attendance difficult, or even impossible, for rural students.[ix]

Even when statewide moot court programs are organized at the county level, they may not reach rural counties.[x] For example, California’s non-profit organization Teach Democracy offers a moot court program includes exposure to criminal law practice.[xi] In theory, the program operates statewide. In reality, it almost exclusively serves urban communities. Most of the state’s metro counties (31 of 37) participate in the moot court program.[xii] In stark contrast, only 4 of the state’s 30 non-metro counties participate.[xiii]

The same may be true for legal academy models. Teach Democracy’s Courtroom to Classroom (C2C) is intentionally designed to bring courtroom practitioners onto middle and high school campuses, rather than bring students to court.  Volunteer lawyers teach basic legal topics and offer on-site moot court programs in middle and high school classrooms. Since lawyers—not students—are responsible for travel, it might seem easier to reach rural schools. Yet, as of November 2024, the C2C program has only served suburban and urban schools.[xiv]

A small handful of high school pre-law programs directly target rural students. In deeply rural Mississippi, the Mississippi Access to Justice Commission and the Mississippi Bar Association have launched Themis Law Camp, a high-school-to-law-school summer camp pipeline.[xv] Students meet lawyers, learn about legal careers, and participate in activities like moot court.[xvi] By holding the camp in less urban areas of Mississippi (rather, for example, than exclusively in the state capital of Jackson), Themis facilitates participation from students in rural areas like Pontotoc County (pop. 31,184).[xvii]  

Unfortunately, the scale of these programs is radically insufficient to meet the need for attorneys in rural criminal legal deserts. States and law schools must coordinate their efforts to bring these opportunities to substantially more students. Moreover, high school students who are able to avail themselves of these pre-law programs too often lose momentum in the transition from college to law school and then to practice. Solutions must continue well beyond the high school stage.

 Internships are non-credit bearing programs that place students in law practice environments where they work under a lawyer’s supervision. Externships are similar, but students earn academic credit for the practical learning experience. Because these are onsite learning experiences, internships and externships offer a rare opportunity for law students to spend a portion of their professional education in a rural legal practice setting. Generally, rural-immersive learning experiences are strongly associated with rural professional practice. In the legal education system, which does not require the lengthier and more in-depth residence programs common to graduate programs in healthcare and teaching, internships and externships are usually the only opportunity for a significant rural practice experience.

Nationally, there are hundreds of externship and internship programs.  “Generic” programs place law students in a wide range of legal settings that share only the most basic practice characteristics. For example, a “public interest externship” might place students in settings that practice civil rights, elder advocacy, education law, or small business assistance. The accompanying externship seminar is likely to explore those legal practice issues that are common to all participating externs.

Intern and externship placements offer not just work experience but often a pathway to post-graduate placements, and, equally importantly, a preview of the context that will color full time employment in any particular place. This last aspect is particularly crucial in rural areas, where individual relationships and rapport are indispensable.

Rural internships and externships remain somewhat rare. Several factors may account for this. One barrier to rural internships and externships arises from the relational nature of these temporary ‘apprenticeships.’ Broadly, law schools and practitioners must build trusting relationships to place students in appropriate settings. Again, externships demand more effort. Accredited law schools must maintain supervision over attorneys in charge of students[i] so that students and placement sites benefit from the instructional and mentorship resources of experienced law faculty. If law schools lack strong connections to rural practice communities, they cannot give their students high quality immersive experiences in rural law practice.

Additionally, for suburban and urban law students, rural practice immersions are often expensive. Unless they are returning to their own rural hometowns, participating students must pay for temporary housing and transportation to remote placements sites. Students who do not own a car must shoulder additional financial burdens for longer-term car rental or forego the rural experience entirely.

Externships programs impose additional costs. As “experiential” components of the standard law school curriculum, externships require students to pay tuition for their externship experience as well as for the associated classroom component. Externships also increase the financial burden on law schools, which must fund faculty to supervise the program and teach the externship seminar.

These costs can be prohibitive. A short-lived Rural Criminal Law Externship at the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at SMU Dedman School of Law successfully placed students in rural prosecutor and public defender offices. Student cohorts were small, but outcomes were promising, with several students accepting permanent jobs in rural prosecution or public defense.[ii] However, the high costs of tuition, combined with the expenses of summer relocation, made the unsustainable.[iii]

Fortunately, some law schools have secured private or state funding for rural practice externships. The Dane G. Hansen Foundation funds Washburn’s six-credit summer Rural Externship Program. The Foundation covers the externship tuition costs. And provides students with a $5,000 stipend to offset housing, travel, and related expenses. The University of North Dakota Law School offers judicial externship opportunities that are funded by the State Bar Association of North Dakota.

While rural criminal externship programs remain exceedingly rare, there is a unique collaboration between Nevada’s Department of Indigent Defense Services (DIDS) and the William S. Boyd Law School at UNLV offers a promising model. Under the auspices of the Samuel S. Lionel Externship Program, DIDS offers a 10-week externship program in a rural public defense practice. When the DIDS externship launched, participating students received a stipend from the State Bar of Nevada. Since then, DIDS itself has assumed responsibility for the student stipends that support public defender externs in rural Nevada counties.[iv] Although almost every state is in dire need of rural prosecutors and public defenders, few externships address these critical specialties. The DIDS externship should be replicated nationwide and provide opportunities for prosecutors and defenders.

Non-credit bearing rural internships appear to be wider spread than rural externships.  Some are run by non-profit organizations. Others are coordinated by law schools and bar associations. Equal Justice Works (EJW), a nonprofit organization that promotes civil legal aid hosts the largest national program for public interest lawyer recruitment and placement.[v] Equal Justice Works’ Rural Summer Legal Corps, a partnership with the federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC), provides a stipend of $7,000 to law students who complete eight to ten weeks of summer work with a non-profit civil legal services provider. There is no similar national non-profit program that promotes summer experiences in rural criminal practice.

On the internship front, the University of Alabama’s Finch Fellowship Initiative places students with judges in rural areas for half a summer. Students engage in a variety of kinds of legal proceedings, participate in community-oriented projects, and develop their professional networks. They receive a $4,000 stipend and provide a concluding report on their experiences.

Similarly, the Idaho Heritage Project’s Rural Services Scholarship Fund University offers scholarships to students who participate in rural summer internships, with past recipients having taken up prosecutorial and public defense positions.

Several state courts and bar associations partnered with law schools have launched their own rural legal internship programs—many also provide students with stipends for transportation, room, and board. Indiana University’s Rural Justice Initiative at the Maurer School of Law places first-year law students in trial court judges’ chambers during the summer and provides them with a 1½-day training on civil, criminal, and access-to-justice issues, as well as a $4,000 stipend. The Texas Indigent Defense Commission has proposed legislative funding for rural public defense summer internships.[vi]

A comparison between these nascent rural legal immersions and the more well-established rural healthcare rotations and residencies demonstrates how far behind the legal community is. Law schools must work with bar associations, state prosecutors’ organizations, and indigent defense provider to increase the number and quality of rural criminal law internships and externships. They should solicit funds from private foundations and state and local governments to provide scholarship support for rural prosecution and defense externships that provide law students with immersive educational experiences in rural criminal practice.

Pro bono and volunteering opportunities can form a meaningful complement to curricular offerings. The University of South Carolina operates the Palmetto LEADER, a mobile law office where law students assist pro bono attorneys providing free legal services to rural and underserved communities. The mobile bus visits locations based on factors like poverty data and access to legal services. Similarly, alternative spring breaks can offer students a brief but fully immersive look into rural work. Many such programs offer rural opportunities, and some offer rural criminal experiences. For example, for over a decade, Denver University Sturm College of Law Alternative Spring Break students have taken up weeklong placements in rural areas serving in prosecutor’s and public defender offices, among others. Similar programming exists through UC Irvine’s Alternative Spring Break, which, for the first time in Spring 2026, took students with previous criminal law experience to rural Maine to practice under the Aroostook County public defender. Students got practice on their feet in misdemeanor court and contributed to research for felony cases.

Law school career services offices (LCSOs) must work with networks of rural employers and rural alumni. LCSOs can promote rural practice by inviting rural employees and practitioners to campus, hosting rural practice events, and promoting the benefits of a rural criminal law career.[i] As they engage with rural alumni and rural employers, LCSOs learn what employers need from new rural practitioners. Sharing that information with law faculty can help schools develop curricula that redress rural legal knowledge and skills gaps, better preparing students for rural practice and serve those communities’ needs.[ii]

LCSOs must work towards a cultural shift in this area. They should stress the leadership opportunities that rural work presents. Rural practice should be positioned as prestigious and noble, a form of public interest work for highly motivated students. To this end, state judges working in, or covering, rural areas, including state supreme court justices, should consider reserving clerkships for students with rural experience or a commitment to enter rural practice.

Building rural practice communities for law school students can also help build graduating cohorts who support each other in their journey to rural practice. The Finch Society, for example, is a law-student-run organization that promotes small town practice and access to justice, with chapters at the University of Arkansas and University of Maine.

At the University of Mississippi Law School, the student-run Magnolia Defenders have taken matters into their own hands. While Magnolia Defenders seeks to create a
robust community of future public defenders.” Their goals include “self-education on the role of public defense,” “advocacy and direct action related to current issues affecting the public defense legal profession and the criminal justice system,” and “communicat[ion] and connect[ion] with alumni” to develop Mississippi public defense networks. Magnolia Defenders have participated in local and national rural public defense programming.[iii]

State and national bar associations must help law school career counselors develop rural practice pathways and recruitment networks.  The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy helps to support the National Rural Recruitment and Retention Network (3RNET). Member organizations include healthcare graduate schools, state offices of rural health, rural practitioners, and non-profit rural health organizations.[iv] 3RNET has an impressive national reach.  There is a 3RNET Coordinator in each state, as well as in the Cherokee Nation and the Northern Mariana Islands. Other federal agencies, such as the Indian Health Service and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also participate.[v] The 3RNET website provides a rural healthcare employment exchange for rural job seekers and employers. Critically, 3RNET trains graduate schools in how to help students find rural employment and teaches employers how to recruit rural professionals. It also offers employers a six-part online training program in how to “recruit for retention.”[vi] In 2022-2023, 3RNET’s rural employment exchange website reported 3,736 rural placements.[vii]

The legal community would benefit from similar efforts. While many scholars have written about strategies to drive rural recruitment, but those publications are not easily accessible to practitioners, nor do they offer the straightforward “how to” format that would help law schools and rural employers build direct collaborations.[viii]