Across Tennessee, communities are facing a growing access-to-justice crisis. In many counties, considered “legal deserts” (i.e., fewer than one lawyer per 1,000 residents), attorney shortages and limited legal services make it virtually impossible for citizens to obtain assistance with essential legal needs, including housing, family law, consumer protection, and other matters that can deeply affect their lives.
The University of Tennessee Winston College of Law’s 2026 Orr Symposium, “Closing the Rural Justice Gap: Innovation and Regulatory Reform,” sponsored by the Tennessee Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission, the Legal Clinic at Winston Law, and the Tennessee Law Review, gathered national experts, scholars, judges, and lawyers to examine the causes of legal deserts and discuss practical solutions.
The symposium was held as the Tennessee Supreme Court considers regulatory reforms aimed at expanding access to quality legal representation. Throughout the program, speakers explored how the legal profession can rethink legal service delivery to ensure that people in underserved communities are not left behind.
Opening the symposium, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Mary Wagner emphasized that the Court’s recent call for public comment on regulatory reforms was designed to “have a conversation” about unmet legal need across Tennessee by obtaining and reflecting upon extensive feedback gathered from the legal profession and broader community to ultimately develop a plan for moving forward.
Throughout the first panel, speakers described the stark realities facing rural communities. Joy Radice, director of clinical programs and associate professor at Winston Law, reflected on the imbalance that occurs when unrepresented individuals stand alone in court against represented parties. “When you envision the scales of justice, you don’t imagine the access to justice gap in civil courts that we see throughout the state,” she said. Justice Wagner noted that Tennessee’s legal aid organizations are overwhelmed, citing studies showing that “92 percent of the problems of people who qualify for legal aid are still going unmet.”
The symposium then turned to possible solutions. During the panel on alternative pathways to licensing lawyers, Marsha Griggs, associate professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law, argued that states must modernize attorney licensing while maintaining public protection. “States are creating alternative licensure pathways because state supreme courts should recognize the need to modernize our admission,” she explained.
Another panel explored whether trained non-lawyer professionals could responsibly help fill service gaps in communities where lawyers are scarce. Matthew Burnett of Frontline Justice and the American Bar Foundation astutely observed: “We’re not going to lawyer our way out of the access-to-justice crisis, and we’re certainly not going to lawyer our way out of the rural access-to-justice crisis.” Speakers highlighted emerging models in states such as Arizona and Alaska, where community justice workers and allied legal professionals are helping people navigate legal systems under carefully designed oversight structures.
The symposium concluded with a Tennessee-focused roundtable featuring judges, legal aid leaders, bar representatives, and rural practitioners discussing how reform efforts could work in practice. Laura Brown, executive director of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services, shared findings from their 2025 Civil Legal Needs Assessment, which revealed that 78 percent of respondents reported at least one civil legal problem, with healthcare, family law, and housing issues among the most common. To fill those gaps, though, Judge Zachary Walden, who serves five counties in East Tennessee, stressed that Tennessee is uniquely positioned to tackle the problem because many rural communities remain relatively close to metropolitan legal centers. “We really need to be intentional about every stage of closing the rural justice gap,” Walden said.
Lonnie T. Brown, Jr., dean, Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law, and Haslam Family Professor, introduced a new Winston Law initiative, the Legal Desert Incubator Program (LDIP) , designed to get to the heart of the rural access to justice crisis. The LDIP would provide graduates who commit to spending five years in a legal desert with training, mentoring, business support, and financial incentives to develop a sustainable law practice. The incubator would build on the work of the Legal Clinic and leverage its relationships in legally underserved areas, providing essential representation to Tennesseans, wholly in line with the university’s land grant mission.
By convening thought leaders and Tennessee decision-makers, the symposium fostered a highly constructive and productive dialogue about one of the most pressing issues currently facing the state. The innovative proposals discussed offer hope for meaningful reform that will go a long way towards solving this seemingly intractable access-to-justice problem.
The 2026 Orr Symposium is free to view on demand here.