Ascendium Helps Shine a Light on Rural Access to Justice

Legal aid experts and champions from across the country travelled to Madison, Wisconsin, recently for Rural Reach: Access to Justice That Meets People Where They Are, a special event held at the Overture Center for the Arts and hosted by Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in partnership with Ascendium Education Group, Quarles & Brady LLP, and Frontline Justice. Ascendium was pleased to partner with these organizations to help organize and disseminate information related to the event, which highlighted community solutions to increasing justice for rural Americans. Additionally, we were proud to support General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer Rebecca Rapp, who emceed the event and serves as co-chair of LSC’s Rural Justice Task Force.

“Wisconsin is a fitting place to have a conversation about rural access to justice,” said Justice Rebecca Frank Dallet of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, one of many special guest speakers at the Oct. 29 event. “Across our state and across our nation, we’re seeing a widening gap between where lawyers live and where legal help is needed.”

In Wisconsin, three out of four attorneys live in just three of the most populated counties — Dane, Milwaukee, and Waukesha. That leaves large parts of the state where people can’t find a lawyer when they need one. As cited in the Rural Justice Task Force’s most recent report, more than 77% of low-income, rural households experienced at least one civil legal problem last year, and these households didn’t receive any or enough legal help to address those problems 94% of the time.

Speakers at the event explored what it really takes to close the rural justice gap through myth busting conversations, data driven insights, and stories from the people powering rural justice every day. One of the community-driven solutions discussed was expanding the types of people who can provide legal aid, which includes training and installing community justice workers in areas with few or no lawyers.

The event spotlighted the release of Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities, a report compiled by the Rural Justice Task Force. The task force, established by LSC’s Board of Directors, includes working group members with a diverse wealth of experience and knowledge on expanding access to justice. While many of the insights in the report come from rural America, they have lots to teach us about increasing justice everywhere.

“This report’s power lies not in its publication, but in what happens next,” Rebecca Rapp added. She challenged those in attendance to think about what they can do individually and collectively to help close the justice gap in both rural and urban places.

Interested in learning more about what you can do to help increase access to justice in rural areas? Watch the recording of Rural Reach: Access to Justice That Meets People Where They Are and read LSC’s report, Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities.