DESERT SOLITAIRE
As it turns out, there aren’t enough lawyers walking into enough rural California bars, nowadays.
The most recent data by the American Bar Association (ABA) reports that, as of 2020, 170,306 lawyers call California home. That’s the second highest number in the country, trailing closely behind the State of New York. However, 7 of California’s 58 counties claim less than one lawyer per 1,000 residents. Merced County, for instance, has 0.74 lawyers for every 1,000 residents. By comparison, there are 23 lawyers to represent every 1,000 San Franciscans.
This phenomenon of underrepresentation—what the ABA has coined as “legal deserts”—is correlative. Rural communities are bound to see less legal representation, per capita, than their city counterparts. It’s a simple case of supply and demand.
However, the necessity for legal counsel does not discriminate between those areas defined as rural, and those defined as urban.
“There is an overwhelming demand we can’t meet,” says Rick Wood, a family law attorney with Wood Law Group who has been practicing in Mammoth since ‘91.
That demand is multifaceted. Not only is there a limited—and depreciating—number of lawyers available at the local level, but there are marked absences of those practitioners specialized in certain fields of law.
“Mono and Inyo County, in terms of legal deserts, need family law lawyers. There [are] only two main firms, and that’s Wood Law Group and Taylor Fitzmaurice. And, there are no lawyers up here that do employment law. There are no lawyers up here that do workers’ comp. Or tax law. Or personal injury. Typically, you’ll find those in big cities,” said local attorney, Jeremy Ibrahim.
Ibrahim, a civil law attorney, says that he often receives inquiries at his office for referrals outside of his field.
“If there is a lawyer up here who does [it], I’m happy to refer cases to them. But, often, I don’t know of any … No one’s up here. No one moves here.”
All in all, Wood estimates that the number of attorneys in private practice, locally, has declined by 75% over the past three decades. He likens it to a “crisis.”
Sophie Bidet, who has served as a public defender in Mammoth for the past 5 years, likens it, instead, to a drain.
“There’s not more than 10 attorneys in the Owens Valley. And it’s the same people circling the bottom of the pool. And we’re being flushed down the pool, yet there’s no more water coming in.”
In more ways than one, the tendency toward lack of legal representation in rural communities presents a drain on both legal resources and efficiency.
Bidet explains: “On the criminal side, indigent offenders are entitled to a public defender. So no matter what, even if there’s no more local public defenders, the county has to provide indigent services, even if they have to go out of contract—out of the county.”
In other words, defendants in criminal suits are not adversely impacted by the shortage of available attorneys, given that the county is obligated to provide counsel.
And while the advent of virtual court via Zoom has alleviated certain boundaries associated with finding available legal counsel, Bidet points out that there are limits to the convenience of virtual representation.
“Mono County does Zoom. Inyo does not. The few out of contract attorneys that the court has reached out to have appeared remotely. But you can’t appear remotely on any sort of meaningful hearing—like a trial, or a [preliminary] hearing, or a motion. If [their] client is in custody, these attorneys are also billed for their travel time.”
According to Bidet, it is in civil cases, more so than criminal, where the attorney shortage has a true impact on the litigants, themselves.
“Divorce, taxation, and death are arguably the 3 most horrible things that can happen to you. So, in the family law context, you’re seeing a lot of people who are representing themselves, pro per, in some of the most challenging times of their lives.”
Trends, nationwide, suggest that the burden of pro per representation is increasingly felt by the judges in underrepresented county courts.
A recent faculty publication by Columbia Law School investigated so-called “Lawyerless Courts,” and the intervention of the judge’s changing traditional role.
“Civil courts,” write the authors of the article, “are not designed for unrepresented people.” Judicial role reform, then, increasingly calls on trial judges to “offer a range of accommodation, assistance, and process simplification to people without legal representation.”
“It is the judges that have to make up the difference,” says Bidet, on cases with pro per representation. “He can’t give legal advice, but the burden falls on the judge to be the fact finder and to ask the questions.”
That process reform begets inefficiency in unrepresented courts.
“[Judges] always give members of the public more leeway, more time,” says Ibrahim. “They hold the lawyers to a higher standard.”
Most of the attorneys we spoke to pointed to the fact that the rate at which attorneys are leaving the area and retiring is outpacing the rate at which new lawyers are entering the community.
Wood noted that most attorneys straight out of law school are saddled with debt, and the local cost of living is too high.
The only lawyers under the age of 40 that Wood could think of were Giancarlo Simonetti, 37, and his own son, Ryan Wood, 38.
Whereas Wood, semi-retired, is 72. Tim Sanford, who’s retiring within a few years, is 69. Dave Hammon just retired at 71.
Bidet remembers the commute of her first few years out of law school, living in what she remembers as the “armpit of San Fernando valley,” and making the 4.5 hour round-trip trek to Los Angeles.
“But,” explains Bidet, “there aren’t places around here to commute from, really. Making $120,000 a year might sound like a decent salary, but you just can’t find housing. We’re really in the wild, wild west.”
Sanford, who has been practicing law in the Eastern Sierra since 1980, explains that he speaks to a lot of young attorneys. He tries to convince them to make the move. But the conversation goes something like this: The young attorney says he’d love to live in Mammoth. Sanford tells him it’s a perfect time; that there’s an open market. Then the young attorney chews on it some more, and he starts backpedaling.
“They’ve got dollars in their eyeballs,” says Sanford. “And they just won’t make as much money here.”
Hammon remembers a different time, when he was getting his own start.
“When I showed up [in the Sierra], not long after the invention of the wheel, I was happy and eager to be here, find a job, pay my bills, and live in paradise.”
But, as the evidence suggests, a lot has changed. Rural communities are aging, student loan debt is mounting, and the housing shortage impacts every facet of industry—law, included.
“I do wonder,” reflects Hammon, “why the beauty of the area is not a bigger draw.”
