Hannah Haksgaard on Rural Practice as Public Interest Work

In this episode, Hannah Haksgaard, Associate Professor of Law at the University of South Dakota School of Law, returns and discusses her article “Rural Practice as Public Interest Work,” published this summer in the symposium issue of the Maine Law Review. Prof. Hakgaard introduces listeners to the severe rural lawyer shortage faced in every state of the country. She then explains why rural private practice should be considered public interest work for the purposes of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program: 1) to combat the rural lawyer shortage, 2) the mixed nature of rural practice, 3) supplying public services, and 4) to combat low rural lawyer salaries. Prof. Haksgaard then addresses the implications of extending the definition of “public interest” to include rural private practice on federal student loan forgiveness and recruiting for law schools, particularly state law schools in rural communities. Her scholarship, including her new paper, is available on SSRN.

This episode was hosted by Maybell Romero, Assistant Professor of Law at Northern Illinois University College of Law. Prof. Romero is on Twitter at @maybellromero.

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