Law school websites may serve as de facto educational and career counselors for rural students curious about rural legal practice. Students unfamiliar with bar associations or courts administration will find their information about rural externships and funding on these sites and will look to see themselves and their interests reflected.
To shed light on the number and nature of rural offerings publicized by law schools, in mid-2025, the Deason Center undertook a comprehensive review of all ABA-Accredited Law Schools’ websites. Although a number of law schools have made efforts to use rural programming to funnel students into rural practice, they remain the exception. After careful review, researchers found few initiatives aimed at the two known predictors of rural practice: recruiting students with rural backgrounds and giving them positive rural educational experiences. The dearth was particularly obvious in the criminal field, with at most a handful of pipeline programs or educational offerings centering on criminal defense or prosecution work.
Rural Recruitment Programs
Researchers found mention of a total of 84 pipeline recruitment programs, of which only five clearly targeted rural students at all, and only one clearly targeted rural students exclusively.
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Researchers also gauged how many programs sought to recruit those interested in practicing in rural areas. They found three that clearly targeted students looking to practice in rural areas, and one clearly focused solely on them.
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Rural Funding Opportunities
Researchers were able to find a total of 17 schools with funding opportunities—scholarships, financial aid, or loan repayment programs—specifically aimed at applicants or students from rural areas.
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In a search for the same set of funding opportunities for students looking to work in rural areas identified 11 law schools with options, with just five schools offering funding exclusively to rural practice.
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Researchers found six schools with financial aid programs both for rural students and rural practitioners were:
- Washburn University School of Law
- University of Nebraska Lincoln College of Law
- …had aid programs exclusively targeted to rural practitioners
- University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law
- Syracuse University College of Law
- Southern Illinois University Simmons Law School
- North Carolina Central University School of Law
- …had aid programs not exclusively focused on rural practitioners
Researchers were unable to discern any financial aid programs across 30 States i, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
Rural Educational and Experiential Offerings
Non Credit-Bearing Offerings
Turning to educational offerings, researchers found 15 law school-sponsored or organized summer rural job placements, of which 11 offered criminal experience.
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Credit-Bearing Offerings
Research into classroom offerings on rural practice yielded 11 schools with rural courses, of which four dealt with criminal and civil practice, and one dealt with criminal practice only.
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Researchers identified 18 schools in 15 different states listing credit-bearing externships offering experience in rural practice, of which twelve offered either a mix of civil and criminal or exclusively criminal placements.
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In the clinical arena, researchers found 25 schools in 21 states with specifically rural offerings. 20 of them had offerings with no criminal component, four offered both civil and criminal work, and one had at least one program exclusively devoted to criminal practice.
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In all, 32 states had at least one law school with some form of credit-bearing rural offering, whether in the classroom or in the field, and 17 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia had no such offerings.ii
Fellowships
In their research into post-graduate fellowships, researchers found seven schools with rural awards. Two of the schools listed at least one fellowship exclusively dedicated to criminal law.
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Comprehensive Pipelines?
To ensure successful progression from college to professional practice, law schools will have to establish pipelines that encompass recruitment, educational offerings, and funding opportunities. Just three schools out of the 195 we examined had at least one program in each category. Those schools were Southern Illinois University Simmons Law School, University of Nebraska Lincoln College of Law, and Washburn University School of Law.
Conclusions
Our website review tells us what prospective rural lawyers will find as they begin researching law school and rural practice. In most cases, these would-be law students will not find materials explaining the importance and feasibility of rural work; evidence that law school will prepare them for a career serving rural communities; or accounts of students who have pursued the same path they are considering. If they do not make concerted efforts to find and recruit students from rural backgrounds, law schools will inevitably produce fewer rural lawyers. Students not from rural areas will not recognize rural work as its own field, let alone choose to experience or pursue it, if they find no reference to it in their course catalogs. Neglecting exposure to this work and these issues disserves the students who would thrive as leaders and entrepreneurs with diversified practices in rural areas. Law schools must build and publicize rural educational pipelines. Career services must in turn connect students to financial incentives that will make their professional practice feasible.