article<\/a> on legal deserts, \u201cNearly every state in the nation has large stretches of rural areas and counties with few lawyers in them\u2014or no lawyers at all.\u201d<\/p>\nSo what\u2019s the solution? North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby and the Chief Justice\u2019s Commission on Professionalism (CJCP) are tilling for the answer. That\u2019s why that body\u2014with CJCP Co-Director James \u201cJimbo\u201d S. Perry leading the charge\u2014invited stakeholders from across the state to convene for the 2023 Legal Deserts Summit<\/em>.<\/p>\nThere, over thirty practitioners and thought leaders presented their vision for turning legal deserts into \u201clegal oases.\u201d The proposals recommended a variety of solutions, such as expanding awareness of the legal needs in rural areas, increasing funding to incentivize attorneys to locate in these areas, and training law students and new attorneys how to launch their own firms in these areas or join another practice to encourage firm succession planning.<\/p>\n
In his presentation at the summit, High Point Law\u2019s Founding Dean and Professor of Law Mark Martin outlined several initiatives the law school intends to implement to encourage HPU law students to become rural lawyers.<\/p>\n
\nBy adopting practical and impactful strategies, HPU Law can aid the efforts of the rest of the summit attendees so that rural residents of North Carolina obtain better legal services in their communities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
One of the few non-lawyers in the room, former Royal Navy Marine Dan Alexander, inspirationally charged summit attendees to break the legal desert problem into small goals, to have a spirit of triumph, and when faced with these obstacles, to say to themselves: \u201cIf I can, I will.\u201d<\/p>\n
The summit attendees are pictured above.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On August 31, 2023, leaders from across the state of North Carolina\u2014from the judiciary, the legal profession, and legal education\u2014gathered at North Carolina State Bar headquarters in Downtown Raleigh to confront a pressing crisis: legal deserts. A legal desert is \u201ca county with one or fewer attorneys per 1,000 inhabitants.\u201d They predominate in rural areas,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8690,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_hpuaeo_plugin_post_data":"","_hpuaeo_plugin_meta_tags":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-school"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Dean Martin Offers Strategies to Combat Legal Deserts at N.C. Summit - Law School<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/law\/2023\/09\/08\/combatting-legal-deserts-nc-summit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dean Martin Offers Strategies to Combat Legal Deserts at N.C. Summit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On August 31, 2023, leaders from across the state of North Carolina\u2014from the judiciary, the legal profession, and legal education\u2014gathered at North Carolina State Bar headquarters in Downtown Raleigh to confront a pressing crisis: legal deserts. 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