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fact no one is there to take their place. The converging forces of many lawyers in small towns nearing retirement and a lack of younger counsel willing to take their place has done more than dampen the retirement plans of many senior lawyers. It also threatens to create an access to justice crisis. If too few young lawyers will practise in rural settings, who will offer legal services to the millions of Canadians who choose to live there? With that question in the background, Canada's legal community is scrambling to convince more young lawyers to resist the lure of the large-firm, big-city lifestyle, and restock the rural bar. "Not everyone has the luxury of transportation to cities. The reality is with the provision of legal advice, at least in various areas, you still do need face-to-face contact." — Marjorie Hickey, Nova Scotia Barristers' Society That a dwindling number of young lawyers view smaller communties as a desirable destination was demonstrated by a 2007 survey of British Columbia articling students. The results showed 82.5 per cent planned to pursue their legal careers in Vancouver or Victoria. That result reflects statistics showing 80 per cent of lawyers practising in B.C. do so in the metro- 32 NO VEMBER / DECEMBER 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com politan areas of those two cities. It's a trend seen from coast to coast. Law Society of Saskatchewan executive director Tom Schonhoffer says a "high percentage" of lawyers in the province are between 45 and 65 years old. He points out that this age group is dominant in rural areas, and that "anecdotally we know of communities where there are no lawyers under 50 years of age." In Manitoba, there were 215 lawyers practising outside of the province's largest city, Winnipeg, in 2007 — that's five fewer than there were over 80 years ago. The Law Society of Upper Canada issued a report in 2005 outlining the declining number of lawyers practising outside of urban centres. It noted that most lawyers operating within solo practices or small firms do so in rural parts of the province. Further, it found that in 1995 young lawyers made up 20 per cent of all sole practitioners, but that number had declined to just nine per cent by 2002. In Nova Scotia, 78 per cent of all lawyers practise in the major centres of Halifax and Sydney, according to the barristers' society. The Law Society of the Northwest Territories indicates about 125 of the 141 lawyers who live in the territory work in Yellowknife. Most Canadian towns with a population under 20,000 would be overjoyed by such a glut of legal professionals. These striking figures have certainly caught the attention of law organizations, which believe that, despite modern teleconferencing technologies, law- yers must have a permanent presence in small towns. "It really comes down to what we mean by access to justice," says Marjorie Hickey, president of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society. She points out that many legal problems the rural bar is counted on to address — Ron MacIsaac MacIsaac & MacIsaac Victoria, B.C. Aaron Behiel, John Will, and Amber Biemans Behiel Will and Biemans Humboldt, Sask. Ari Wormeli MacLean Family Law Group Fort St. John, B.C. Sean S. Safa Safalaw Professional Corp. Kitchener, Ont.