Rural Pathways: New Progam To Entice Lawyers to Rural Areas

By BILL BELLEN
MILFORD

Anyone who has had to navigate the legal system in the rural counties of New York State—Otsego County included—can tell you that it is not nearly as easy as it used to be to find proper legal assistance.

Populations of judges, attorneys and lawyers in Upstate New York have been steadily declining over the last few decades, as professionals reach the age of retirement with no newcomers to take their place. This creates a dire state of affairs for those in our region who find themselves in need of the legal advice or assistance that only these professionals can offer.

“Populations of professionals in Upstate New York; it’s just not as what it was. It’s become really hard for people who need to have a will done, get divorced, get custody of their kids or, God forbid, have a criminal matter, to find an attorney in the area,” said Sarah Cowen, associate court attorney for Otsego County Court Judge Michael F. Getman and president of the Otsego County Bar Association.

“I totally am of the mind that upstate New York summer is the best; the lakes, the hikes, the everything. If we could get people to come up here, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t like it as well.”

With public access to the legal system at stake, Cowen and a number of her colleagues, both in Otsego County and statewide, have begun to take action to turn this trend around. This summer marks the launch of the state court system’s pilot program, dubbed “Rural Pathways.” This initiative seeks to incentivize young, outgoing law students to make the move to the areas of New York that need their practice the most.

Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry, who oversees the New York State Appellate Court Third Judicial Department, of which Otsego County is a part, helped to lead this charge for change alongside Cowen.

“I have deep, deep rural roots and I have seen firsthand the diminishment of availability of legal services in our rural communities, and that’s why when Sarah came to me with this idea, I thought, ‘This is really great, a placement program,’” Justice Garry said.

“I have regular interactions with the lawyers and judges within my 28 counties,” Justice Garry continued. “I was reaching out to the North Country, where there’s a lot of rural population. Working with the judges there, we identified that the two [counties] who might most need or benefit from this project were the far north, Clinton [County], that’s where Plattsburg is, and St. Lawrence [County], where Canton and Ogdensburg are.”

Thanks to Cowen’s connection to Otsego County, Clinton, St. Lawrence and Otsego were chosen as the counties where the pilot program would launch. Two students were to be selected through an application process to take part in a six-week program, combining the educational experience of various assignments within the rural court system with the rest and relaxation of being exposed to the beauties of Upstate New York. A program like this mirrors the conventional practice of larger law firms located in major cities across the state and country.

“When I was in law school, there’s this thing you go through where you interview on campus for large firms. If you get a job at a large firm, basically what they do is the summer between your second and third years, they try and woo you to come work for them. They don’t make you work the long hours, you just get to do the fun stuff … If you’re in the city, you go to the box seats at Yankee Stadium, you go to the fancy steak restaurants, you go to all these places,” Cowen said.

Rural Pathways is hoping to capture this alluring energy in a way that encourages participants to take their practice to locations they may otherwise have never been exposed to. This experience will involve both representatives of the legal community and members of the general community, taking prospective lawyers out boating, hiking, or to local historical sites in order to acclimate them to the region and help them build connections.

Though there was much enthusiasm surrounding this idea, the biggest obstacle in the way of progress was funding. Luckily, this is something that was easier to overcome than expected.

When he heard about the idea for Rural Pathways, the Hon. Rowan D. Wilson, chief judge of the State of New York and the New York Court of Appeals, was all ears.

“[When] people can’t afford lawyers or can’t find lawyers because there aren’t any … then the justice system doesn’t work properly, because it’s very difficult for somebody who’s not a lawyer and doesn’t really know about the law to represent himself or herself,” Hon. Judge Wilson commented. “Because I’m responsible for the whole justice system in the state, the court system, it matters to me professionally, as well as personally, that people are represented and not coming into court unrepresented unless that’s really what they want to do.”

With the full support of the court system behind the program, funding for Rural Pathways was secured. The initiative was designed to hone in on a similar scope to those of city firms, targeting second year law students in order to give them vital work and lived experience heading into their final year of law school. Information about the program was posted on the state court website and distributed to 13 different law schools to be shared with their students. More than 100 students applied, with candidates gradually being weeded out until the final six were invited to join the pilot launch.

With the groundwork laid, it is now up to community engagement to determine the success of Rural Pathways.

When asked about the importance of community involvement to the program, Hon. Judge Wilson responded, “The people in the local community have to really integrate these students into various things of community life there, so you need to make sure you have people committed to do that. And then the other thing is, in addition to the community being able to do that, the court system has to have people, or at least the bar associations, who are interested in the legal part of it. And those three counties, I think [Justice Garry] picked because there were people in each of them who would fulfill those roles.”

Involvement from the community of Otsego County and beyond in these endeavors is vital to the project’s continuance. As Hon. Judge Wilson and many other officials have emphasized, access to the legal system is crucial not only to one’s personal life, but the functioning of the democratic system as a whole. Opportunities to encourage those who can fill these gaps in the system to come to our region are not common, and if this initiative is deemed successful by the state court system, there could be more where this came from.

“There’s 62 counties in New York State. There’s probably 20 of them where we don’t really need to do anything like this, but maybe 40 where we do. And what I’d like to do, if it’s successful, is to move it into all those counties, to try and help populate them with lawyers down the road,” Hon. Judge Wilson said.

Rural Pathways is merely a pilot program, and there may still be kinks to work out in its methodology. However, now and throughout this summer is the most important time frame for support of, and feedback on, this initiative. Many citizens of Otsego County have already volunteered to assist in these measures and donate their resources toward making Rural Pathways a success. With enthusiastic support from the state court system, and empowered and passionate legal officials willing to push for change on the ground, the future of legal services in Upstate New York is starting to look a little brighter.

Those interested in volunteering their time, who would like to learn how to be more involved or have feedback they would like to share can reach out to Justice Garry’s Chief of Staff Judd Krasher, who is also helping to launch Rural Pathways, at JKrasher@nycourts.gov.