🔒Rural areas hold opportunity for law grads facing tough job market

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News stories about the shortage of dentists and family doctors in rural Maine have appeared regularly over the past two decades. A combination of lower salaries and fewer opportunities for professional advancement have produced apparent chronic shortages in the state's rural counties — and, in response, several programs designed to combat them. There's a state loan forgiveness program for dentists, and new funding for rural health clinics in the Affordable Care Act.

But could an even larger and older profession — law — also be affected by these demographics?

New statistics show that it could. According to Peter Pitegoff, dean of the University of Maine School of Law, some 1,000 of the state's 3,700 practicing attorneys are age 60 or older — a point when at least some are thinking of retirement. And in the five most rural counties, lawyers older than 60 comprise more than half of current practitioners.

While there have been no legislative bills yet to head off a shortfall of legal services, the problem is getting some high-level attention at the law school and at the Maine Bar Association, where the current president, William Robitzek of the Lewiston firm of Berman Simmons, is giving it his personal attention.

Robitzek says that as the nation's oldest state demographically, it only makes sense that Maine would be experiencing professional shortages, and that the shortfalls would be most pronounced in rural areas where population, and often personal income, has been falling. The Maine Department of Labor projected 74 openings for lawyers each year from 2010 to 2020; 54 would be replacement openings and 20 would be new positions.

But finding younger lawyers to replace those retiring in rural areas is an especially tough sell, even for those who graduate from the law school in Portland and want to practice in Maine.

“Portland is a great place to live,” Robitzek says. “It has culture and amenities and that's a real draw for younger people.” For those going to law school there, Maine's largest metro area is often their first choice to launch a career.

But there are some significant economic headwinds. Larger law firms have slowed their hiring rates, shrinking the window for recent grads to land a post with a metro firm.

A study done by the Wall Street Journal and American Bar Association published in October 2012 showed 25.5% of UMaine 2011 law graduates were unemployed nine months after graduation, and of those employed, only 42% were working in jobs that required a law degree. Of the 87 students who graduated from Maine Law in 2012, 19.5% had not found a job as of February 2013, according to the ABA, a rate that is nearly twice the national average of 10.6%.

Other opportunities

Pitegoff says “there is a tremendous need” for legal services in rural areas and that where lawyers are now choosing to practice “is not the right distribution” to serve all parts of the state. The law school has begun inviting judges and attorneys from distant parts of Maine, including Aroostook and Washington counties, to meet with students and talk with them about opportunities to practice outside southern Maine.

It's also taken a more hands-on approach. Last January, Rachel Reeves, senior adviser for career services, took several Class of '13 students on a road trip to rural destinations, including Belfast, Ellsworth, Machias and Bangor. They met judges and attorneys and, for some at least, it was their first experience in those parts of Maine, Reeves says.

Pitegoff adds that the efforts to spotlight rural practices have achieved some visibility, though it's too soon to say how effective they'll be.

The Maine bar has also stepped up efforts. Robitzek has begun trying to match new graduates with older attorneys who might be looking for a successor, or are simply looking to bring new blood into their firms. It's an effort he intends to expand once he steps down as bar president at the end of the year.

The bar also offers other inducements to keep graduates in Maine, including free bar membership, a mentoring program and a litigation institute that focuses on courtroom practices and procedures.

But to meet the demand for their services, freshly minted lawyers might have to adjust their expectations of a first job. Reeves points out that the Maine Department of Labor projects a 7.2% increase in legal sector jobs over the next decade, one of the rosier predictions in a generally bleak employment picture.

Pitegoff says that's because legal training is now in demand for new positions that until recently didn't exist.

“Privacy compliance and data security are huge issues now, not just for large corporations, but for large and even medium-sized nonprofits as well,” he says.

Traditionally, only about half of law school graduates go directly into legal practice; the others are hired by business, government and the nonprofit sector for positions that require legal training.

“Lawyers may not be running these departments, but they're essential to their work,” Pitegoff says.

Whether that translates into creating the kind of staffing of law firms and courts that are required to serve Maine's rural counties is another question, as is whether they will be jobs filled by Maine natives.

“Even some of the out-of-state students end up practicing in rural areas,” says Reeves. “A lot of them don't want to leave once they're here. It is kind of a lovely place.”