LETTER: State funding for rural lawyers is laughable

To the Editor:

I am writing regarding the legislation proposed by Mr. Vehle allowing the use of tax dollars to educate new attorneys in this state.

When my husband and I first read about his proposal in our favorite paper, The Daily Republic, we couldn’t stop laughing. I called my attorney friend in Colorado and told her and she could not stop laughing. The idea is so preposterous.

After all, there are countless attorneys across this country that are currently unable to practice law because of economic conditions. The state of Colorado has even offered a course to students graduating with a law degree to make them aware of other professions to use those degrees.

My husband and I started talking about the stories we have heard about orphan trains in the early part of the 1900s. New York had a crisis with orphans. The state loaded up orphans on trains and sent them across the country. When the train would stop in a community, people would board the train and pick a child or two and take them home. Maybe we could do something along those lines to help the crisis with attorneys, arranging for the train to stop in those unfortunate South Dakota communities. People from the community board the train and could pick out an attorney. Think about it, how much taxpayer money could be saved with this idea? Just imagine all the new, bright futures and the smiles on the faces of those poor, unemployed attorneys? Kind of makes your heart warm, doesn’t it?

Communities with populations under 10,000 have a number of concerns and problems that additional money could help with. Common sense would tell me that any one of those communities would put having an attorney lower on their priority list. Maybe not. But here is my suggestion to solve the problem that I think is the most reasonable and cost effective — place a “Help Wanted” ad. Bet that would not cost us taxpayers $5.2 million.

Just a thought.

Tags: opinion, updates, letters, lawyers, rural, state, legislature