Professor Pruitt Speaks to PreLaw Magazine About Rural Legal Deserts

Professor Lisa R. Pruitt spoke to preLaw Magazine about rural legal deserts, or areas with too few lawyers and judges to meet demand.

Pruitt, president-elect of the Rural Sociological Society, talked about teaching students about rural difference and rural disadvantage, and how she would like to see more schools set up pipelines, like one at the University of Georgia, that help funnel graduating students back to the rural areas from which they came.

“A lot of the lawyers who do wind up practicing in rural areas grew up in rural places," she told the magazine. "And they may have a love/hate relationship with their rural upbringing, but often they’re more likely than urban people with urban upbringing [to be] the ones to go back.”

Distinguished Professor of Law Lisa R. Pruitt is a scholar whose recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race, and ethnicity. Pruitt's work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts. She is the recipient of the law school’s 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award.