{"meta":{"dataset":"deserts","title":"Legal deserts: law offices and lawyers per resident in every U.S. county","version":"1.0.0","doi":"10.5281/zenodo.23721430","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23721430","conceptDoi":"10.5281/zenodo.23721429","license":"CC BY 4.0","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Source: Probative, Legal deserts: law offices and lawyers per resident in every U.S. county, version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23721430, licensed CC BY 4.0.","citation":"Probative. (2026). Legal deserts: law offices and lawyers per resident in every U.S. county (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23721430","disclaimer":"Not legal advice. These are counts and rates from government statistics and state bar or court registries, kept for marketing planning. A county with few offices is not a finding about anyone's access to a lawyer; bar addresses are not places of practice.","notice":"Probative is a marketing firm, not a law firm; not legal advice.","lastChecked":"2026-10-28","url":"https://probativegrowth.com/data/v1/deserts/areas/US.json","humanUrl":"https://probativegrowth.com/research/legal-deserts/","statusCodes":{"P":"primary source","S":"secondary source","D":"ABA model default","U":"open question"}},"key":"US","records":[{"id":"deserts-us","dataset":"deserts","area":"US","areaName":"United States","areaType":"us","state":"US","status":"P","text":"Of 3,144 counties and county equivalents, 440 have under 1 private law-office establishment per 10,000 residents and 293 have none; 2.0% of residents live in a county under 1 per 10,000.","value":440,"unit":"counties under 1 law office per 10,000 residents","period":"2026-Q1","population":341784857,"counties":3144,"counties_below_1_per_10k":440,"counties_no_office":293,"counties_no_office_no_solo":227,"share_residents_below_1_per_10k":2,"law_offices":177138,"bar_lawyers":null,"bar_lawyers_per_1k":null,"desert_flag_lawyers":null,"bar_status_definition":null,"sources":[{"label":"Probative law-offices dataset (BLS QCEW, Census CBP, NES, population estimates)","url":"https://data.bls.gov/cew/data/api/2026/1/industry/541110.csv","kind":"primary","accessed":"2026-10-28"}],"source":{"agency":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (QCEW) with U.S. Census Bureau (CBP, NES, population)","file":"2026/1/industry/541110.csv","table":"QCEW open data, private ownership, NAICS 541110","release":"2026 Q1","vintage":"QCEW 2026 Q1; CBP 2023; NES 2024; population estimates vintage 2025","url":"https://www.bls.gov/cew/additional-resources/open-data/","accessed":"2026-10-28"},"flags":{"suppressed":false,"noise":false,"preliminary":true,"moe":null},"lastChecked":"2026-10-28","confidence":"medium","confidenceBasis":"preliminary figure"}]}