Much has been written about the oversaturation of the Ontario legal market. A 2018 Law Times article noted that the number of licensing candidates increased by seventy percent over ten years and the number of lawyers has grown at a faster rate than the general population since 2000.[1]
However, another seemingly contradictory trend is also occurring. Despite a growing number of lawyers, not all Ontarians have easy access to a lawyer.
The reason? Increasingly, lawyers are becoming concentrated in urban areas. For example, a 2013 National Post article notes that sixty-seven percent of Ontario lawyers practice in the Greater Toronto Area.[2] A 2014 research paper by Osgoode Hall noted the number of lawyers practising in “rural and remote areas” has decreased.[3] Reduced access to legal services has negative consequences for rural Ontarians even to the point where they may have to be self-represented litigants. Thus, they might not get the outcome they desire or deserve. There needs to be a solution.
One potential solution is to have young lawyers and articling students practice and article in rural areas. Young lawyers are less likely to have dependents, making it easier for them to relocate. However, many would argue that it would be difficult for young lawyers or articling students to work in rural areas due to the burden of increasing law school debt. Currently, the average law student owes more than $80 000 in student debt in their final year of law school.[4] In larger cities, recent graduates would generally have opportunities to make larger salaries. Therefore, it needs to be economically viable for young lawyers and articling students to work in rural communities.
In this piece, the author will suggest several ways to encourage young lawyers to practice in rural areas. These suggestions require the participation of a variety of stakeholders, and will draw on successful examples from other fields and jurisdictions. To encourage young lawyers to practice in rural areas, law schools should persuade articling students to article in rural areas, governments should provide loan forgiveness programs to lawyers who practice in rural areas and townships or counties could offer incentives for lawyers to move there.
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