No surprise: Study shows New Hampshire needs more lawyers

MANCHESTER, NH – Finishing up your law degree and wondering where to look for work? New Hampshire may be a good bet. The state ranks 40th in lawyers per capita in a recent study that analyzed the number of lawyers-per-residents in the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

That news is nothing new, though – legal and justice advocates in recent years have been vocal about the lack of attorneys in rural areas, including New Hampshire.

New Hampshire has 3,495 lawyers serving a population of 1,377,529, meaning there are 2.54 lawyers for every 1,000 residents in the state, according to the study by Dolman Law Group, a Pennsylvania personal injury firm.

The research is just numbers – it doesn’t specify what services the lawyers perform, where in the state they’re located or delve into the issue of access to legal services in rural areas, which is a crisis across the country, including New Hampshire. A much more in-depth American Bar Association study, which had similar numbers for New Hampshire, points out that such studies don’t specify whether lawyers are representing individuals or working for the government or an organization doing other work.

Topping the list is Washington, D.C., with 28,011 lawyers and a population of 672,738, meaning there are 41.64 lawyers for every 1,000 people.

It drops off fast after that, with the top 10 as New York (9.16 lawyers for every 1,000), Maryland (6.6), Massachusetts (6.08), Connecticut (5.83), Illinois (4.90), Louisiana (4.60), Minnesota (4.57), New Jersey (4.32), and California (4.24).

The study also looked at average salary for the top 10 states, with New York topping the list at $117,459. The lowest-paid lawyers in the top 10 states were in Louisiana, where the average salary is $85,204.

New York also has the most lawyers in the country – 185,000, with a population of 20,201,249.

Among New England states, New Hampshire has the fewest number of lawyers per 1,000 residents.

Aside from the two New England states in the top 10, Vermont is 19th with 3.42 lawyers per 1,000 people. That’s a total of 2,198 lawyers serving a population of 643,077. Maine is 29th, with 2.93 lawyers per 1,000 residents. The state has 3,985 lawyers and a population of 1,362,359.

Dolman Law Group said that to reach the results, the number of lawyers in each state was collected from legal databases, then the number of lawyers per 1,000 residents was calculated using the state populations, sourced from the latest census data. The see the full results, click here.

Legal Deserts and New Hampshire

Most people who need a lawyer need one for non-criminal work – help with wills, landlord-tenant or other housing disputes, divorce or family court issues, and such. But for many, that type of representation is hard to access. In 2023, 684 civil legal aid cases in New Hampshire were rejected because of a lack of resources, according to an article by the New Hampshire Bar Association.

The state has made some in-roads to provide legal access for people who need it, from the Free Legal Aid volunteer telephone line, which began in 2019, to the more recent initiatives funded by $1.2 million from the American Rescue Plan aimed at providing more legal help for those in New Hampshire who need it.

Even so, the National Center for Access to Justice gives New Hampshire a 29.6 out of a possible score of 100 on 25 legal aid access metrics, ranking it 35th for access to legal aid in the country. New Hampshire las less than one legal aid attorney for every 10,000 residents living in poverty, according to the index.

The issue of legal deserts – areas where there are not enough attorneys to represent people who need representation – was the topic of the much more in-depth American Bar Association report in 2020. A 2023 ABA report found that 92% of low-income Americans face civil legal issues without adequate representation.

“Large swaths of the United States have few lawyers or no lawyers,” the report said. “There are more than 3,100 counties and county equivalents in the U.S., and 54 of them have no lawyers. Another 182 have only one or two lawyers. Many are parts of legal deserts – large areas where residents have to travel far to find a lawyer for routine matters like drawing up a will, handling a divorce or disputing a traffic violation.”