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Midwestern state lays down lawyer lure
South Dakota has become the first US state to reimburse lawyers for their law school tuition in an attempt to attract legal professionals away from their city hubs and into rural America.
South Dakota: recruitment drive
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A report from the Business Insider website suggests that the scheme was sparked by a survey which found that only two per cent of small firms in the US are in rural areas despite 20 per cent of the population living there.
Combined with research which found that only half of 2012 law graduates had full-time work as lawyers by mid-February, the state has decided has to try and lure new lawyers away from cities.
‘Incentive payment'
According to the report, lawyers will have to work in South Dakota for five years to get the ‘incentive payment', which is 90 per cent of in-state tuition for the University of South Dakota School of Law to be paid out over those five years.
The complete payment would therefore be $19,337, or an extra $3,867 each year lawyers spend in South Dakota.
The report points out that while the figure is not insignificant, it does not compare to the average $125,000 in debt that graduates of private law schools incur.
