Legal Deserts in America: Where Lawyers Are Scarce (2026)
Legal practices per 10,000 residents in every U.S. county
Hover over a county for a quick summary, or click or tap it for details. Switch views to compare the concentration of legal practices, the need for legal help, and the gap between them.
The largest U.S. legal deserts by county population
These are the twenty most populous counties classified as legal deserts. Many are near metropolitan areas, where residents may turn to lawyers in a nearby city for help.
| County | Residents | Law offices with staff | Solo practices | Practices per 10,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinal CountyAZ | 539,380 | 32 | 166 | 3.7 |
| Merced CountyCA | 297,260 | 39 | 69 | 3.6 |
| Rock CountyWI | 166,472 | 29 | 21 | 3.0 |
| Kings CountyCA | 154,327 | 21 | 35 | 3.6 |
| St. Mary's CountyMD | 116,692 | 14 | 21 | 3.0 |
| Fond du Lac CountyWI | 104,669 | 15 | 16 | 3.0 |
| Cleveland CountyNC | 103,325 | 19 | 14 | 3.2 |
| Franklin CountyWA | 102,612 | 7 | 25 | 3.1 |
| Rockingham CountyNC | 94,195 | 10 | 21 | 3.3 |
| Wayne CountyNY | 91,250 | 13 | 21 | 3.7 |
| Rockingham CountyVA * | 89,316 | under 3 | 28 | 3.4 |
| Dodge CountyWI | 89,097 | 9 | 12 | 2.4 |
| Bullitt CountyKY | 86,454 | 13 | 19 | 3.7 |
| Coryell CountyTX | 85,592 | 6 | 9 | 1.8 |
| Leavenworth CountyKS | 84,590 | 12 | 16 | 3.3 |
| Augusta CountyVA * | 78,940 | 4 | 24 | 3.5 |
| Putnam CountyFL | 77,734 | 12 | 15 | 3.5 |
| Laurens CountySC | 71,848 | 9 | 18 | 3.8 |
| Otero CountyNM | 70,368 | 7 | 10 | 2.4 |
| McKinley CountyNM | 68,119 | 9 | 9 | 2.6 |
Counties with the most legal practices per 10,000 residents, among those with populations of 10,000 or more
- 1Fairfax cityVA87.8
- 2Teton CountyWY64.3
- 3Pitkin CountyCO51.7
- 4New York CountyNY44.6
- 5Falls Church cityVA44.2
- 6Marin CountyCA43.4
- 7Orleans ParishLA42.2
- 8District of ColumbiaDC38.8
- 9Nassau CountyNY38.2
- 10Westchester CountyNY34.3
"Under 3" means the unpublished Census count is 0, 1, or 2. * Virginia counties often hold court in a separate independent city. Law offices there count toward the city's total, rather than the surrounding county's.
Where legal need is high and local practices are scarce
These counties have 20,000 or more residents, few local legal practices, and a high legal need index.
| County | Residents | Practices per 10,000 | The need Legal need index, 0 to 100. It combines poverty, bankruptcy filings, fatal crashes, divorce or separation, residents aged 65 and over, and residents born outside the U.S., each ranked across all counties. | Gap score The county's need percentile minus its supply percentile. A score of +90 means it ranks far higher for legal need than for legal practices per resident. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grady CountyGA | 26,590 | 2.6 | 76 | +97 |
| Union ParishLA | 20,561 | 2.4 | 75 | +97 |
| Adams CountyWI | 21,752 | 1.8 | 72 | +96 |
| Henry CountyVA | 49,242 | 2.2 | 70 | +94 |
| Luna CountyNM | 25,407 | 2.4 | 69 | +92 |
| Putnam CountyFL | 77,734 | 3.5 | 73 | +91 |
| Marlboro CountySC | 25,488 | 2.7 | 69 | +91 |
| DeSoto CountyFL | 37,078 | 3.8 | 78 | +91 |
| Marshall CountyMS | 34,654 | 3.5 | 72 | +90 |
| Edgecombe CountyNC | 49,121 | 3.7 | 73 | +90 |
| Mecklenburg CountyVA | 30,747 | 3.9 | 74 | +88 |
| Gadsden CountyFL | 44,298 | 4.1 | 78 | +88 |
| Worth CountyGA | 20,059 | 4.0 | 75 | +88 |
| Grant ParishLA | 22,075 | 3.2 | 68 | +88 |
| Conway CountyAR | 21,393 | 2.8 | 67 | +88 |
| Mississippi CountyAR | 37,828 | 2.1 | 65 | +87 |
| Grainger CountyTN | 25,739 | 3.5 | 68 | +86 |
| Hardee CountyFL | 25,932 | 3.5 | 68 | +86 |
| Pittsylvania CountyVA | 59,490 | 2.4 | 65 | +86 |
| Union CountySC | 26,799 | 3.0 | 66 | +84 |
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Book a ConsultationU.S. legal deserts by state
States are ranked by the share of residents living in counties with fewer than 7 legal practices per 10,000 people or no licensed attorney. Click a column heading to sort.
| State | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1North Dakota | 60% | 14 of 53 | 8.2 | 20.7 | -2.4% |
| 2Wisconsin | 57% | 54 of 72 | 7.0 | 25.3 | -2.4% |
| 3Minnesota | 50% | 67 of 87 | 9.1 | 44.7 | +0.9% |
| 4Alaska | 48% | 11 of 30 | 10.5 | 30.5 | -2.0% |
| 5Iowa | 48% | 63 of 99 | 7.5 | 22.2 | -1.8% |
| 6North Carolina | 47% | 66 of 100 | 8.5 | 24.0 | +10.9% |
| 7Indiana | 47% | 66 of 92 | 8.0 | 22.3 | -1.4% |
| 8Arkansas | 42% | 52 of 75 | 9.3 | 24.4 | +20.8% |
| 9West Virginia | 38% | 30 of 55 | 10.0 | 24.9 | -8.0% |
| 10New Mexico | 38% | 18 of 33 | 10.8 | 25.5 | -3.5% |
| 11Virginia | 36% | 65 of 133 | 10.9 | 27.0 | -1.1% |
| 12South Carolina | 35% | 27 of 46 | 10.6 | 20.6 | +6.2% |
| 13Nebraska | 34% | 38 of 93 | 9.3 | 29.5 | +7.4% |
| 14Kentucky | 34% | 65 of 120 | 9.9 | 29.7 | -0.2% |
| 15Idaho | 34% | 20 of 44 | 10.0 | 21.2 | +8.4% |
| 16Missouri | 34% | 76 of 115 | 10.6 | 39.6 | +1.9% |
| 17Kansas | 33% | 31 of 105 | 9.9 | 26.4 | -0.9% |
| 18Tennessee | 32% | 60 of 95 | 9.8 | 26.8 | +4.2% |
| 19Ohio | 32% | 58 of 88 | 10.1 | 31.2 | +0.5% |
| 20Mississippi | 26% | 34 of 82 | 11.4 | 22.7 | -2.8% |
| 21Michigan | 26% | 45 of 83 | 11.0 | 33.8 | -3.5% |
| 22Pennsylvania | 25% | 30 of 67 | 11.4 | 36.6 | -1.2% |
| 23Georgia | 24% | 77 of 159 | 13.0 | 30.7 | +6.5% |
| 24Colorado | 22% | 14 of 64 | 15.0 | 39.5 | +4.0% |
| 25Oklahoma | 21% | 30 of 77 | 13.0 | 34.2 | +4.2% |
| 26Alabama | 20% | 26 of 67 | 11.3 | 29.5 | +2.5% |
| 27Delaware | 18% | 1 of 3 | 9.6 | 31.4 | +8.8% |
| 28Arizona | 18% | 9 of 15 | 10.3 | 20.2 | +2.3% |
| 29Utah | 18% | 14 of 29 | 10.6 | 25.9 | +8.3% |
| 30Illinois | 18% | 61 of 102 | 13.8 | 48.7 | -1.1% |
| 31Oregon | 18% | 13 of 36 | 11.5 | 28.6 | +0.3% |
| 32South Dakota | 16% | 11 of 66 | 9.2 | 22.0 | +8.1% |
| 33Washington | 14% | 14 of 39 | 11.1 | 33.0 | +0.4% |
| 34Maine | 14% | 5 of 16 | 10.9 | 27.3 | -3.4% |
| 35Maryland | 13% | 8 of 24 | 13.1 | 42.2 | n/a |
| 36New York | 12% | 19 of 62 | 18.0 | 95.0 | +2.9% |
| 37New Hampshire | 12% | 2 of 10 | 10.6 | 24.4 | -1.3% |
| 38Texas | 12% | 103 of 254 | 12.5 | 31.5 | +7.6% |
| 39California | 11% | 19 of 58 | 16.0 | 46.0 | +7.4% |
| 40Montana | 10% | 11 of 56 | 14.2 | 28.5 | +3.2% |
| 41Florida | 9% | 28 of 67 | 17.6 | 34.5 | +2.1% |
| 42Vermont | 8% | 1 of 14 | 13.4 | 31.9 | -43.1% |
| 43Louisiana | 7% | 18 of 64 | 17.8 | 41.2 | -7.4% |
| 44Nevada | 7% | 6 of 17 | 12.8 | 24.0 | +5.0% |
| 45Wyoming | 4% | 2 of 23 | 17.0 | 28.1 | -6.4% |
| 46Connecticut | 3% | 1 of 9 | 15.2 | 49.3 | -13.6% |
| 47New Jersey | 2% | 2 of 21 | 14.5 | 41.5 | -3.6% |
| 48Hawaii | 0% | 0 of 5 | 11.2 | 28.8 | -2.2% |
| 49District of Columbia | 0% | 0 of 1 | 38.8 | n/a | n/a |
| 50Massachusetts | 0% | 0 of 14 | 17.3 | 59.6 | -0.6% |
| 51Rhode Island | 0% | 0 of 5 | 16.1 | 34.3 | -6.2% |
How we identify legal deserts and measure legal need
What counts as a legal practice
We add two Census counts: law offices with paid employees and legal services businesses with no paid employees, which are mostly solo practices. We then divide the total by the county's July 2025 population from the Census Population Estimates to calculate the rate per resident.
Census does not publish counts under 3 in either series. As a result, 854 counties have an unpublished law office count and 679 have an unpublished solo practice count. Each unpublished count could be 0, 1, or 2, so we calculate the rate at both ends of that range. Legal desert and underserved counties qualify even at the highest possible count. Served and dense counties hold their class at both ends. When the range spans more than one class, we mark the county as too few to measure instead of guessing. For these counties the map shows the possible range, and the download includes both ends.
Practice counts and attorney counts measure different things: a practice may have one lawyer or a hundred. For Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, Texas, and Washington, the county card and download also show licensed attorney counts published by the state bar. Each bar uses its own counting method, so these figures should only be compared within the same state. Where the bar lists no licensed attorney in a county, the map marks it as no licensed attorney, and the state table counts it as underserved.
How the legal need index and gap score work
The index combines six public indicators of legal need: the poverty rate, bankruptcy filings per 10,000 residents, fatal crashes per 100,000 residents, the share of adults who are divorced or separated, the share of residents aged 65 and over, and the share of residents born outside the U.S.. We rank each indicator across counties, convert it to a percentile, and average the results with equal weight. The index ranges from 0 to 100. Where bankruptcy data is missing, as it is for Connecticut's planning regions and two Alaska areas, we average the other five indicators.
The gap score is the need percentile minus the supply percentile. A score of +90 means the county ranks much higher for legal need than for legal practices per resident.
What the map can't show
Census records a practice at its tax-filing address, which for a solo practitioner is often a home address. Virginia's independent cities are counted separately from surrounding counties, even when the county courthouse and nearby law offices are in the city. This can make local legal services appear scarcer in those counties. Residents of suburban counties may also use lawyers in a nearby city. The map shows where practices are based; it does not measure how far residents travel for legal help.
County Business Patterns data has a two-year lag, and the 2023 release is the latest. Fatal crashes are recorded by crash location, rather than where the people involved lived. FBI arrest data is collected but excluded from the need index because figures from agencies serving multiple counties are not broken down by county.
Sources
- County Business Patterns 2023, U.S. Census Bureau: law offices with paid staff and their employees.
- Nonemployer Statistics 2024, U.S. Census Bureau: legal services businesses with no employees.
- Population Estimates, Vintage 2025, U.S. Census Bureau: county populations and the county list.
- American Community Survey 2020-2024, U.S. Census Bureau: poverty, age, marital status, place of birth.
- Fatality Analysis Reporting System 2022-2024, NHTSA: fatal crashes by county.
- Bankruptcy Filings by County, Table F-5A, 2025, U.S. Courts.
- National Lawyer Population Survey 2025, American Bar Association: resident active attorneys by state.
- State bar and court reports of licensed attorneys by county for 12 states; each report is named in the download's companion file.
- Cartographic boundary files 2024, U.S. Census Bureau: county shapes. Connecticut appears as its nine planning regions.
Download the figures for all 3,144 counties. The data is free to use with a link back to this page (CC BY 4.0).
Download the CSVPioneerly, Legal Deserts in America: Where Lawyers Are Scarce (2026), pioneerly.com/us-legal-deserts/. Journalists, researchers, and bar associations are welcome to use the figures and map images with this credit.
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