Rural areas of Vermont are increasingly becoming “legal deserts,” a situation that the American Bar Association describes as a shortage of attorneys serving a particular community. According to reports published by Legal Services Corporation and Legal Aid Vermont, the rural attorney shortage limits Vermonters’ access to representation, strains public defense and judicial systems, and threatens equitable access to justice. In this report we examine three questions: 1) What is the current situation of attorney recruitment efforts in Vermont? 2)What are other states doing to improve recruitment of lawyers in rural areas? and 3) How could Vermont implement similar policies?

This report first identifies key barriers to attorney recruitment and retention in rural Vermont through qualitative interviews of Vermont practitioners and judiciary staff. Next, based on previous literature, the report identifies a menu of five policy approaches to address the issue: 1) financial incentives, 2) academic mentorship, 3) career development, 4) virtual services, and 5) expanded scope of paralegal work. We focus on the first three policy approaches and study programs of comparison in South Dakota for financial incentives, Nebraska for academic mentorship, and Maine for career development. We discuss the scope of the attorney shortage in these states, the implementation and funding of their interventions, and their results. Finally, we provide considerations and lessons in pursuing all five policy pathways for Vermont.