Mikal Doke lives in Newberry, a town nestled in the forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and teaches English in a nearby school.

After 11 years of marriage, she wanted a divorce and began looking for a lawyer last summer. Her options were scarce in Luce County, which lies along Lake Superior: There was only one private lawyer in the county of 6,300 people, and Doke said she believed he might be an acquaintance of her husband from high school. Doke made nearly daily calls for six weeks before hiring an attorney in Cheboygan County, about 90 miles away.

She formally filed for divorce last August. Doke said that by February, she had burned through the $5,000 retainer she'd paid up-front and has since been billed an additional $2,375. The charges, billed at $300 per hour, also included the nearly two hours each way it takes her attorney to travel to the county courthouse in Newberry for each in-person court date.

During the winter months, when snow swells above mailboxes, or on summer days, when surges of tourists drive north to enjoy the Upper Peninsula's natural beauty, it takes even longer.

Doke knew it would be expensive before she hired her attorney. Still, the bills are beyond what she can afford on her $58,000 annual pay and are pushing her to rely on her credit card.

She and her husband, Eric, have lived in different parts of their home while their divorce played out in court, a situation they both called extremely stressful

"It's high tension, high stress and very confrontational," Mikal Doke said of her situation over the past year.

The Dokes said the financial costs and emotional pain of their ongoing divorce have been exacerbated because of where they live.

Mikal and Eric Doke are among the tens of millions of Americans who live in towns and counties across the nation with limited or no access to legal services.

The American Bar Association estimates there are nearly 1,300 counties, or roughly one-third of all the counties in the U.S., that it considers legal deserts, where there is just one attorney per 1,000 residents — or none at all.

Iowa State University rural sociologist David J. Peters has gone a step further, using different methods and identifying 253 counties as "critical legal deserts" — places with the biggest gap between the population's need for lawyers and the number of legal workers who live there. These counties make up 11% of nonmetro counties in the U.S. and are disproportionately located in Texas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan and Oregon.

In 2020, these "critical legal desert" counties had a total population of about 3.9 million people. Luce County, where the Doke family lives, is one of several "critical legal desert" counties in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Peters also identified 413 counties as "urgent legal deserts" and 518 as "emerging legal deserts." Roughly 21 million people reside in these two types of counties.

With so few attorneys serving these rural or sparsely populated areas, many local residents struggle to find lawyers for myriad legal problems involving contracts, probate, civil litigation and real estate, as well as matters involving family, criminal, or agricultural law. Businesses, nonprofits and municipalities also struggle to find representation as attorneys retire or are conflicted out of matters.

The consequences are far-reaching, affecting both the local economy and the well-being of rural communities. Prosecuting crime, purchasing property, attracting corporate facilities, opening new businesses and even adoption become harder without enough attorneys.

Economic factors also contribute to the expansion of such legal deserts across more parts of the country. As attorneys age and retire from rural county seats, they are finding it harder to pass on their practices to the next generation, simply because no one wants to live in these far-off locales and for lower pay.

Big-city legal jobs are more lucrative than ever, with some first-year associates earning more than $235,000 per year, and the highest-earning private lawyers boasting hourly rates of $3,000 per hour or even $6,000 per hour or more.

The average annual wage for a lawyer in Michigan's Upper Peninsula was $110,450 as of May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with $152,950 in the Detroit metropolitan area and $187,420 in Chicago during the same period.

Lawyers, some even in their 40s, are paying down their student debt and find that working at larger firms in metropolitan areas brings them higher pay, bonuses and access to an urban lifestyle.

A 2024 survey by the ABA found that 85% of respondents had borrowed money to fund their studies, with those who borrowed reporting a median debt of $112,500 related to their law degrees and $137,500 in all loans at graduation.

As many graduates enter the legal workforce with significant debt, law is overwhelmingly becoming an urban profession.

In Michigan, almost 80% of lawyers are concentrated in seven metropolitan counties, according to a 2022 report published by the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission.

Mikal Doke's lawyer, Amanda Szukala, lives on the other side of the Mackinac Bridge, a nearly five-mile suspension bridge connecting the Upper Peninsula with the rest of Michigan. Szukala said she tries to serve places such as Newberry because there are few lawyers there.

On trips into the region, she said she always carries an overnight bag just in case ice shuts down the bridge and leaves her stranded.

To reduce the number of hours she bills for travel, she said she tries to do video hearings whenever possible. Still, she worries the lack of attorneys in the region will get worse.

"I mean, I'm going to be 48 in a couple of months, and I am probably the third-youngest member of the Cheboygan County Bar," she said.

Hometown Lawyer

Mikal Doke's husband, Eric Doke, did hire the only attorney in Luce County.

But it wasn't an easy process for him either

"Obtaining a lawyer was like damn near impossible," he said.

He called lawyers all over the Upper Peninsula region. Many either didn't respond or sought a larger retainer to make the long trip to Newberry. He said he spoke with an attorney in Marquette, more than 100 miles away, who wanted to take on his case but needed $12,000.

That amount was out of reach for Doke, a former mechanic who, after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis, said his only income is a monthly $1,800 Social Security disability payment.

After days of searching online, his brother suggested he call Newberry's only lawyer, Chad Peltier, who doesn't have a website. "I didn't even know that he did family law," Eric Doke said.

Peltier took the case and charged a $2,500 retainer. The two men went to the same high school, but graduated several years apart. Peltier, 50, earned a law degree at the school now known as Michigan State University College of Law. He returned to Newberry and started as an associate to Beth Gibson, now a state judge for the local circuit and who at that time was a private attorney.

That was 2002, when Luce County still had a handful of private-practicing lawyers. Some of the older lawyers have since retired, died or moved away. When another of Newberry's lawyers, Brian Rahilly, became a judge in 2020, Peltier became the only private practitioner in the county.

He practices family law, estate planning, probate and criminal defense, sometimes working as appointed counsel for defendants who can't pay. His caseload extends beyond Luce County, including four nearby counties and a tribal court serving the nearby Bay Mills Indian Community. He estimates he handles 50 to 100 cases at a time.

But Peltier also routinely turns down cases where the legal questions are too specialized — professional malpractice, bankruptcy or Social Security disputes, for instance — or where he has a conflict of interest.

He said his gross revenue amounts to roughly $300,000 per year. A third of that goes toward expenses, including taxes and wages for his assistant; his take-home comes to about $200,000 per year. To limit expenses, he uses a separate unit attached to his home as an office.

"I do OK," Peltier said.

He said he's still making payments on student loans — about $380 per month on about $60,000 of remaining debt — but the payments haven't been a big problem for him.


Meanwhile, downstate Michigan — the southern part of the state's Lower Peninsula where several major cities like Detroit and Grand Rapids are located — offers new lawyers a far smoother career path: established law firms to join, a decent income, easier housing and more entertainment choices, Peltier said.

According to a 2022 report from the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, only a handful of attorneys have set up shop in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the preceding decade. In nearby Schoolcraft County, population 8,000, two lawyers joined the local workforce between 2012 and 2021. In Alger County, population 8,800, there were no new lawyers during that time.

"Living in the [Upper Peninsula] is difficult," said Judge Beth Gibson, who previously was a private attorney in Luce County. "The weather is not like what you get below mid-Michigan. Unless you really like the snow and like to hunt and fish … It's a different lifestyle, and you really need to want to live it."

Pay is also an issue in attracting and retaining lawyers in the area. Mackinac County prosecutor J. Stuart Spencer earns $117,000 and Judge Gibson earns $185,000, both less than first-year associates at large big city law firms.

And housing costs are high, as are costs related to fuel and utilities. Spencer uses a woodstove and electric, and it's not unusual for his electric bill to be $750 in the winter.

"Around here people aren't rolling in cash as attorneys," Spencer said. "You could be a heavy equipment operator, truck driver — a lot of jobs you could do and make as much as you would as an attorney, if not more."


Michigan's uneven access to legal services and attorneys is a story being lived across the country. Uneven economic growth contributes to people and businesses clustering around cities and regional hubs, while rural areas, even those in otherwise densely populated states, are living through a gradual erosion of services and resources.

This wasn't always the case.

"Rural communities were much more vibrant and thriving in the 1970s and 1980s," said Peters, the rural sociologist at Iowa State University. "So a lot of [baby boomers] were able to go back and establish their practices in rural communities."

The lower cost of a law degree gave them the flexibility to return home or work elsewhere in the country.

At public law schools around the country, annual in-state tuition for residents rose from $2,006 in 1985 to $32,100 in 2025, according to data from the American Bar Association. That 1985 tuition would be $6,204 in today's dollars. The dramatic rise in tuition costs has corresponded with the decline in manufacturing, farming, mining and other drivers of many rural and local economies.

"And now as they retire, I think people kind of realize there is no pipeline," Peters said. "There are no younger lawyers that want to take over these rural practices."

Bright Spots

A burgeoning patchwork of local pipeline programs across the country is hoping to educate and bring the next generation of attorneys to nonurban and rural communities where there aren't enough legal practitioners. Led by local bar associations, law schools, states or courts, the programs work to make the case for small-town life.

Some states also are recruiting paraprofessionals or other experts without a law degree to handle run-of-the-mill legal issues, creating the legal equivalent to a physician's assistant program or a nurse practitioner program. But the difficulty in scaling up these nascent state licensing programs and getting paraprofessionals to rural areas is limiting their impact.

Several state-run programs in Michigan are working toward meeting the gap in legal services.

Michigan's State Court Administrative Office is pushing to expand its court navigator program. Luce County and others within its circuit are being set up with self-help stations — a computer, internet connection and forms — inside courthouses after receiving a grant from the state. Self-represented litigants can use these stations to get information on navigating the court system, including via video calls with professionals in the state's capital who are trained to offer nonlegal advice.

Separately, a state law in 2013 led to the creation of the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, replacing a patchwork of policies and guaranteeing the availability and pay of state public defenders. Local lawyers are now contracted to take on cases and are paid $125 to $200 per hour, depending on the crime and region.

Additionally, in 2024, the commission implemented a program that matches lawyers from more populated areas to underserved rural areas of the state to take on criminal defense work there.

In July, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed bills expanding the commission to also cover indigent youth defendants.

In the Upper Peninsula, Spencer said many private lawyers previously would have turned down such work because of poor pay. The commission has changed that, the Mackinac County prosecutor said.

"The defense attorneys are as important as the judge, cops and prosecutors," Spencer said. "The system doesn't work well without all of them, and we're all part of the same system."

Other parts of Luce County's legal system, including its judges and prosecutors, also are stretched for resources. The county is now on its fourth prosecutor in three years. The challenge is simply finding good lawyers who want to move to the area and stay, Judge Gibson said.

Mikal and Eric Doke were scheduled to have a divorce hearing in April, but were delayed due to a lack of available judges in the area.

Judge Gibson told Law360 Pulse the judge shortage became an issue as she sought to implement a unification of the four courts of the county's 11th Circuit to improve teamwork and efficiency. She expects to have a new judge in place by year's end, which would bring the courts to three full-time judges, plus one with limited duties.

Mikal Doke said that once she finally appeared before Judge Gibson in June, her divorce proceedings began to move along quickly. Nine days after the hearing, the judge granted her sole access to her home, and Eric Doke moved out soon after.

Mikal Doke said, "It's sad, and I wish we could have avoided the whole situation. At the same time, it's a relief."

She said she plans to stay in the area. She loves her house, and she loves the school where she teaches. Their three children are "Yooper kids," she said, using a term for residents of the Upper Peninsula. 

Eric Doke also plans to continue living in the area, calling it one of the most beautiful places in the world.

"I mean, I feel damn lucky to live in the [Upper Peninsula]," he said. But he called the lack of legal resources "really rough."

"And don't ever get divorced, is what I'd tell people," he said.

--Editing by Lakshna Mehta. Additional reporting by Anna Farrell, Anna Sanders and Kevin Penton. Graphics by Ben Jay and Jason Mallory.