NEW YORK, October 31, 2026 – Pioneerly, a law firm growth and marketing company, has launched Legal Deserts in America, a free resource that maps the availability of legal practices and indicators of legal need across all 3,144 U.S. counties and county equivalents. The resource helps law firms investigate underserved markets and gives journalists, researchers, and bar associations a detailed view of gaps in local legal services.
Pioneerly’s analysis classifies 305 counties, home to 9.7 million people, as legal deserts, with fewer than 4 legal practices per 10,000 residents. Another 1,158 counties, home to 61.7 million people, are classified as underserved, with 4 to under 7 practices per 10,000 residents. The national average is 12.9.
The resource brings together Census business and population data, public indicators of legal need, ABA attorney figures, and county-level attorney counts available from state bars. Visitors can select a county to see its figures, compare states, and download the data for further analysis.
Where Lawyers Are Scarce Across America
- 530 counties have fewer than 3 law offices with paid staff and fewer than 3 solo legal practices. These counties are home to 2.9 million people.
- Across the 12 states with published county attorney counts, 22 counties have no licensed attorneys: 12 in Nebraska, 9 in Texas, and 1 in Mississippi.
- Pinal County, Arizona, is the most populous county classified as a legal desert, with 539,380 residents and 3.7 legal practices per 10,000 residents.
Finding Underserved Legal Markets for Law Firm Expansion
The interactive map offers three views: legal practices per resident, a legal need index, and a gap score comparing the two. The need index combines six indicators covering poverty, bankruptcy filings, fatal crashes, divorce or separation, older residents, and residents born outside the United States. The gap score highlights counties where legal need ranks higher than the concentration of local practices.
For law firms considering expansion, the resource provides a starting point for identifying counties where their services may be needed. Pioneerly helps firms assess local demand and competition, choose markets that fit their practice, and build marketing plans to attract the cases and matters they want.
What Makes a County a Legal Desert
The map counts legal practices, which can range from a solo practitioner to an office with many lawyers. It combines law offices with paid employees and legal services businesses without paid employees. Census doesn’t publish the number of law offices or solo practices in a county when it’s below 3, so in many small counties the exact number could be 0, 1, or 2. Pioneerly calculated each of those counties twice, once with the lowest possible count and once with the highest. Every legal desert stays below 4 practices per 10,000 residents even with the highest count. When the two results fall into different categories, which happens in 435 small counties, the map marks the county as “too few to measure.”
The full dataset is available as a CSV download under CC BY 4.0. Journalists, researchers, and bar associations can use the figures and map images with credit to Pioneerly and a link to the resource.
Explore Legal Deserts in America: pioneerly.com/us-legal-deserts/
About Pioneerly
Pioneerly helps midsize U.S. law firms grow and expand into new markets. The company builds complete case acquisition systems that bring together marketing, intake optimization, and revenue analytics to attract the right clients, turn inquiries into signed cases and matters, and show firms where their growth is coming from.
Media Contact
Matt Sarson
Chief Marketing Officer, Pioneerly
matt@pioneerly.com
