cff-version: 1.2.0
message: "If you use this dataset, please cite it as: Probative Growth, Legal deserts: law offices and lawyers per resident in every U.S. county, 2026, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23963393. Source: Probative, Legal deserts: law offices and lawyers per resident in every U.S. county, version 2.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23963393, licensed CC BY 4.0."
type: dataset
title: "Legal deserts: law offices and lawyers per resident in every U.S. county"
authors:
  - name: "Probative Growth"
    website: "https://probativegrowth.com"
version: "2.0.0"
date-released: 2026-11-04
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.23963393
url: "https://probativegrowth.com/research/legal-deserts/"
license: CC-BY-4.0
abstract: "Which counties have few or no law offices for their residents, under two definitions shown side by side. Offices: private law-office establishments per 10,000 residents (BLS QCEW, latest quarter, 2025 population), flagged when under 1 or when there is none. Lawyers: where a state's own bar or court publishes a county count (California, New York, Mississippi, Illinois), lawyers per 1,000 residents, flagged when under 1, the threshold the American Bar Association used in 2020. Each county also shows the Census count of solo legal-services firms with no employees, and whether it is in a metropolitan area, a smaller city area or neither. State and national rows count the counties. Bar figures are county-by-status totals only; no lawyer is named."
keywords:
  - "legal deserts"
  - "lawyers per capita by county"
  - "counties with no lawyer"
  - "rural legal access"
  - "law offices per 10,000 residents"
  - "access to justice data"