Written by: Blake Etringer

Brian Farrell, associate professor of instruction, associate director of the Center for Human Rights, and director of the Citizen Lawyer Program at Iowa Law, participated in a panel about rurality and the law at a June Iowa State Bar Association (ISBA) meeting.

Farrell discussed the positive impacts that attorneys can have on small, rural communities—both economic and otherwise. Right now, however, 43 of Iowa’s 99 counties are designated as “legal deserts” by the ISBA. These counties lack the appropriate number of attorneys to perform important legal functions, such as will drafting, farm leases, and custody disputes.

Farrell and his co-panelists were among those leading the charge to incentivize rural legal practice in Iowa: Iowa Representative Brian Lohse; former Iowa Governor and former United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack; Kathy Law, 2025-2026 ISBA president; Ryan Daisy, who leads the ISBA's Rural Practice Section; and Omar Padilla of Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and Jennifer Zwagerman, associate professor at Drake Law School.

The panel was covered by numerous media outlets, including a KCRG story that also aired in multiple local TV markets in Iowa. 

Iowa lawmakers passed a bill that Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law in June aimed at attracting more attorneys to rural practice. The new law established the Attorney Loan Repayment Program, which will offer loan repayment assistance up to $10,000 per year for no more than six consecutive years to attorneys who are licensed in Iowa and committed to practicing in the state, with priority given to attorneys living and practicing in rural Iowa.

This program and other incentives are designed to increase law school accessibility and affordability, with the goal of addressing Iowa's rural attorney shortage in the coming years.