46 of West Virginia’s 55 Counties Are Legal Deserts: What the Lawyer Shortage Means for Families and Businesses
Everyday Legal Advice®. Clear answers for West Virginians facing a changing legal landscape.
West Virginia has a lawyer problem—not because the state has too many attorneys, but because a growing number of communities have too few lawyers available to meet their legal needs.
On August 10, 2026, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia released the findings and recommendations of its Commission on the Future of the Practice of Law in West Virginia. The Commission was created to examine the declining number of attorneys practicing in the state, shortages of lawyers willing to accept court-appointed cases, challenges facing rural and small-firm practices, and the broader problem of access to legal services throughout West Virginia.
One statistic captures the magnitude of the problem: 46 of West Virginia’s 55 counties are classified as “legal deserts.”
Although much of the Commission’s work focuses on the shortage of attorneys available for court-appointed matters, the implications extend well beyond criminal defense and the court system. A shortage of West Virginia lawyers can affect families trying to navigate divorce or custody disputes, people who need estate planning, individuals involved in civil litigation, and small-business owners who need legal advice before a manageable problem becomes an expensive one.
The Commission’s findings also suggest that the West Virginia lawyer shortage could become more significant in the coming years.
What Is a Legal Desert in West Virginia?
A “legal desert” generally describes a community where there are too few lawyers available to meet the legal needs of the population. For purposes of its analysis, the Commission classified counties with fewer than one private-practice attorney for every 1,000 residents as legal deserts. Under that standard, 46 of West Virginia’s 55 counties qualify.
That does not mean those counties have no lawyers. The practical problem is more complicated. An attorney may already have a full caseload, may not practice the area of law a person needs, or may not be able to take a new case quickly enough. Someone may have to travel to another county to find counsel, and even when an attorney is available, the cost of traditional legal representation may make hiring one difficult.
Attorney density thus tells only part of the story. Meaningful access to justice requires legal services that people can actually find, afford, and use when they need them.
That distinction is particularly important in rural communities. Having a lawyer somewhere within a geographic area does little good if that attorney cannot take another case or does not handle family law, estate planning, business law, criminal defense, or the other type of legal problem a resident is facing.
West Virginia Has Been Losing Lawyers
The Commission’s findings show that the number of lawyers practicing in West Virginia has been declining faster than the state’s population. According to the report, the number of active in-state attorneys declined approximately 9.29% between 2014 and 2024, while West Virginia’s population declined approximately 4.3% during the same period.
There is also a significant generational challenge. Approximately 25% of private-practice attorneys surveyed indicated that they expect to retire within the next five years. At the same time, West Virginia is not necessarily producing and retaining enough new attorneys to replace everyone leaving the profession.
The Commission found that West Virginia averages approximately 248 lawyers leaving active practice each year compared with approximately 203 entering it. If that trend continues while a substantial portion of the state’s existing private-practice lawyers approach retirement, finding an attorney could become increasingly difficult in areas that are already underserved.
This is one reason the discussion about legal deserts matters beyond today’s availability of attorneys. West Virginia needs to consider not only where lawyers are practicing now, but also who will be practicing in those communities five, ten, and twenty years from now.
The West Virginia Lawyer Shortage Is Already Affecting the Courts
The effects of declining attorney availability are not theoretical. Only 32% of private-practice attorneys currently accept court-appointed cases, while another 44% previously accepted appointments but no longer do so.
Judges told the Commission that declining attorney availability is already affecting court schedules. When one attorney handles cases before several judges in different counties and judicial circuits, scheduling a single hearing can require coordinating multiple court calendars. The Commission explained that a hearing that otherwise might occur within two weeks can be pushed further into the future simply because the limited number of available attorneys are appearing in courts throughout the region.
Heavy caseloads can affect clients in other ways as well. Lawyers who are stretched across too many matters have less time available for each individual case, which can contribute to slower communications and court submissions. Increasing the number of available attorneys therefore is not simply a benefit to lawyers. Greater attorney capacity can help courts operate more efficiently and give lawyers more time to devote to the clients they represent.
Why Small Law Firms Matter to Access to Justice
One of the Commission’s most interesting findings involves the importance of solo practitioners and small law firms to West Virginia’s legal system.
For child abuse and neglect matters, the Commission found that 40% of solo practitioners and 25% of attorneys at firms with fewer than five lawyers accepted appointments, compared with only 5% of attorneys at firms with six or more lawyers.
Those statistics reinforce an important point: small law firms are not simply small businesses operating within their communities. In many parts of West Virginia, they are essential to the state’s legal infrastructure. Supporting sustainable small and regional law practices can therefore improve access to legal services throughout the state.
The challenge is that starting and operating a small law firm is difficult. The Commission identified administrative support and business financing as important needs for solo and small-firm practitioners, and only 14% of solo practitioners reported having an attorney mentor. New attorneys considering rural practice may therefore face not only the ordinary challenge of learning how to practice law, but also the responsibility of learning how to operate a business, hire staff, implement technology, acquire clients, manage finances, and build professional relationships.
For West Virginia to attract more young lawyers to underserved communities, those lawyers need a realistic path to building sustainable careers.
The Economics of Court-Appointed Legal Work Matter
The Commission also examined why many private attorneys no longer accept court-appointed cases. Compensation is much of the problem.
West Virginia currently compensates appointed attorneys at $60 per hour for out-of-court work and $80 per hour for in-court work, according to the report. Survey responses, by comparison, showed that private criminal-defense rates commonly fell between $151 and $250 per hour. Among solo attorneys and firms with five or fewer lawyers that do not currently accept appointments, inadequate compensation was the most often identified top barrier.
The difference matters because a law practice has significant overhead. Lawyers have to pay staff, malpractice insurance, technology expenses, continuing legal education costs, office expenses, taxes, licensing costs, and the many other expenses associated with operating a professional practice.
The Commission found that 49% of attorneys who have accepted court appointments reported having no support staff, and 90% of those attorneys were solo practitioners.
Simply asking more lawyers to take court-appointed cases will not solve the problem if accepting those cases makes it difficult for small firms to remain financially sustainable. Increasing access to legal services requires addressing the economics of providing those services as well.
The Legal Access Problem Goes Beyond Court-Appointed Cases
Perhaps the most important part of the Commission’s report for ordinary West Virginians is that the access-to-justice problem extends beyond people who need court-appointed counsel.
Some individuals qualify for free or subsidized legal assistance, while others have sufficient financial resources to comfortably retain private counsel. Between those groups, however, are many working families, individuals, and small-business owners who have legitimate legal needs but struggle with the cost of traditional legal representation.
The Commission expressly recognizes people who have legal needs but do not qualify for Legal Aid and nevertheless cannot afford an attorney. It also identifies another significant problem: people do not always recognize that they have a legal issue early enough to address it efficiently. A relatively manageable legal issue can therefore become a much larger and more expensive problem before an attorney ever becomes involved.
This is why access to justice cannot be measured only by the number of lawyers located within a particular county. A lawyer technically being available does not necessarily mean legal help is practically accessible.
Law firms also need to consider whether their services are understandable, predictable, and structured in ways that encourage people to seek advice before a problem becomes a crisis.
Can Flat-Fee Legal Services Help Close the Justice Gap?
One reason people delay contacting an attorney is uncertainty about cost. Someone may understand that a legal problem needs attention but have no idea whether hiring a lawyer will ultimately cost hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars. For many families and small businesses, the uncertainty itself becomes a barrier.
Waiting, however, can be expensive. A business owner may sign an agreement without understanding an important contract provision. A parent may make decisions in a custody dispute without understanding their long-term consequences. A family may postpone estate planning for years. A disagreement that might have been resolved with early legal advice may eventually become costly litigation.
Where the nature of the legal matter permits it, flat-fee and clearly defined legal services can help reduce that uncertainty.
Rather than force every client to choose immediately between having no attorney and retaining a lawyer for full representation, law firms can consider a range of service options. Depending on the matter and applicable ethical and procedural requirements, those options might include a defined legal strategy consultation, attorney document review, contract review, preparation of specific documents, limited-scope representation, or traditional full representation when the circumstances require it.
Not every legal matter can, or should, be handled through a standardized flat fee. Litigation is inherently unpredictable, and some cases require substantial attorney involvement that cannot reasonably be determined at the beginning of the representation. But where services can be defined and priced predictably, doing so can remove one of the barriers that prevents people from seeking legal help.
Technology Can Help West Virginia Lawyers Serve More People
Technology will also play a role in addressing West Virginia’s attorney shortage, although technology alone cannot solve the problem.
The Commission recognizes that artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies may increase productivity and efficiency in legal practice. At the same time, it notes that technology cannot replace lawyers who represent criminal defendants or parties in juvenile matters in court, nor can it replace the personal interactions required in many types of legal representation.
That is an important distinction. The most valuable role of legal technology is not necessarily replacing the attorney-client relationship; it is eliminating unnecessary friction around that relationship.
Modern law firms can use technology to improve client intake, scheduling, document workflows, routine communications, payments, case administration, and other processes that otherwise consume substantial amounts of lawyer and staff time. When those systems work well, attorneys can devote a greater percentage of their time to counseling clients, negotiating disputes, preparing cases, appearing in court, and performing the work that actually requires legal judgment.
That increased efficiency becomes particularly important in a rural state where lawyers may need to serve clients across multiple counties and large geographic areas.
Technology should give lawyers more time to be lawyers.
Could Pennsylvania and Other Neighboring-State Lawyers Help?
The Commission also recommends considering changes that would make it easier for qualified out-of-state lawyers to practice in West Virginia, particularly attorneys from neighboring jurisdictions.
West Virginia does not exist in isolation from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Communities on opposite sides of the state line often share employers, businesses, families, and regional economies. Increasing the ability of qualified lawyers in neighboring states to serve West Virginia clients could therefore expand the available pool of attorneys without requiring every lawyer to physically relocate.
For regional firms serving clients in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia, this model presents an opportunity to bring legal resources across traditional geographic boundaries while continuing to comply with the licensing requirements and professional obligations of each jurisdiction.
As West Virginia considers how to address legal deserts, regional law firms may become an increasingly important part of the solution.
West Virginia Needs to Give Young Lawyers a Reason to Stay
There is some encouraging news in the Commission’s findings. Younger attorneys appear more willing than older attorneys to accept court-appointed work. The Commission found that 42% of lawyers age 44 and younger accept court appointments compared with 26% of lawyers age 45 and older.
The difficulty is geographic distribution. Younger attorneys are disproportionately concentrated in West Virginia’s more populated counties, leaving many rural communities without the next generation of lawyers needed to replace attorneys approaching retirement.
The Commission proposes several possible solutions, including rural-practice incubators, mentorship programs, financial incentives, internships, externships, loan-repayment assistance, and other programs designed to introduce law students and young attorneys to practice in communities where lawyers are needed.
Private law firms can drive that effort as well. Young lawyers should not necessarily have to choose between joining a large metropolitan law firm and opening a solo practice without established systems or support. Small and regional firms can offer another path: meaningful client responsibility and courtroom experience combined with mentoring, administrative staff, technology, established processes, and an existing client base.
Creating that career path may ultimately be just as important as convincing young lawyers that rural West Virginia needs them.
What The Skeen Firm Is Doing to Improve Access to Legal Services
The West Virginia lawyer shortage will not be solved by the courts, Legislature, law schools, State Bar, or private attorneys acting alone. Improving access to justice will require participation from all of them.
At The Skeen Firm, we believe private law firms have a role in developing new ways to make legal services more practical and accessible for ordinary families and businesses. That includes expanding predictable flat-fee services where appropriate, using technology and centralized systems to reduce unnecessary administrative costs and delays, educating people about legal issues before they become crises, and serving clients across Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
It also means building a law firm where attorneys have the infrastructure and support necessary to spend more of their time practicing law and serving clients. The Commission’s findings concerning administrative burdens, mentorship, attorney retirements, and rural practice reinforce the importance of building sustainable firms rather than simply asking individual lawyers to do more with fewer resources.
That philosophy is reflected in our concept of Everyday Legal Advice®. People should not have to be wealthy to understand their legal rights, and they should not have to wait until a legal problem becomes an emergency before talking with an attorney.
Closing West Virginia’s Justice Gap Will Require More Than More Lawyers
West Virginia needs more attorneys, particularly in the communities the Commission has identified as legal deserts. The state should continue exploring ways to attract young lawyers, support rural practices, improve court-appointed compensation, reduce unnecessary barriers to practice, and strengthen the pipeline of attorneys willing to serve West Virginia communities.
But increasing the number of lawyers is only one part of the solution.
Law firms should also ask how each existing attorney can serve more people effectively without sacrificing the quality of representation. Predictable pricing, defined services, better technology, centralized administrative support, mentoring, regional practice models, and earlier legal education can all contribute to that goal.
The future of legal practice in West Virginia does not have to look exactly like its past. If courts, policymakers, law schools, lawyers, and private firms are willing to reconsider how legal services are delivered, the current attorney shortage can become an opportunity to build a more accessible legal system.
For The Skeen Firm, the principle is straightforward: Legal advice should be understandable, practical, and available before a legal problem becomes a crisis. That is what Everyday Legal Advice® is intended to mean.
Talk With a West Virginia Attorney
If you are facing a family law, business, estate planning, criminal defense, or civil litigation matter, getting legal advice early may help you better understand your options and determine what steps to take next.
Contact The Skeen Firm or call 724-250-8841 to discuss your situation.
Everyday Legal Advice®.
This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Reading this article or contacting the firm does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Source
Commission on the Future of the Practice of Law in West Virginia, Findings and Recommendations Report (Aug. 10, 2026), including Appendix survey results. Original court release: Commission on the Future of the Practice of Law
