High School Pipelines

a. The Rural Challenge for Programs that Expose High School Students to Criminal Practice

Legal awareness programs for high school students abound, and most involve exposure to criminal legal practice. State bar associations,²⁹ and non-profits,³⁰ as well as colleges, universities, and law schools,³¹ offer mock trial programs or ‘law academy’ programs that teach students about legal practice.^'32

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.³³ And while some high school legal academies also showcase civil practice models, many (such as Street Law programs) also explore criminal law.³⁴  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.³⁴ 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.³⁶ This may make attendance difficult, or even impossible, for rural students.³⁷

Even when statewide moot court programs are organized at the county level, they may not reach rural counties.³⁸ For example, California’s non-profit organization Teach Democracy offers a moot court program includes exposure to criminal law practice.³⁹ 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.⁴⁰ In stark contrast, only 4 of the state’s 30 non-metro counties participate.⁴¹

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.⁴²

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.⁴³ Students meet lawyers, learn about legal careers, and participate in activities like moot court.⁴⁴ 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).⁴⁵

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.