LINCOLN — Three decades ago, Hall County Public Defender Gerald Piccolo could get more than 100 applicants for a job opening just by posting a notice on the bulletin boards at Nebraska’s two law colleges and sharing a notice with the state bar association.

Now, he said, he’s lucky to get a handful of aspiring defense attorneys to apply.

“I haven’t ever received more than 10 applicants for a job in the past 10 years,” Piccolo said.

It’s part of a national trend of fewer law graduates due to decreased enrollment in law schools, which have seen a 21% drop in students since peaking in 2010.

The shortage of potential new prosecutors and public defenders is presenting an even bigger problem in Nebraska’s smaller cities and rural areas, where it’s difficult to convince some college graduates to relocate.

Bill derailed

At Piccolo’s central Nebraska office, for instance, four of his eight lawyer positions were unfilled in 2022 and 2023, and two remain open today.

“It’s just more attractive to live in Lincoln or Omaha than live in Grand Island, Madison County or Scottsbluff,” he said. “It’s easier to stay in Omaha or Lincoln because that’s where the law schools are.”

A bill to address the workforce shortage, however, got derailed in the Nebraska Legislature toward the end of the 2024 session due to a disagreement between the state’s prosecutors and defense attorneys over the incentives that should be offered.

State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, who is a lawyer, had introduced legislation to expand financial incentives offered to “public service” attorneys — like county prosecutors and public defenders — who located in rural areas through the state’s long-running Legal Education for Public Service and Rural Practice Loan Repayment Assistance Program.

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That program provides student loan repayment assistance to counties with less than 15,000 residents in an effort to address “legal deserts” in the state.

12 of 93 counties without lawyers

Twelve of the state’s 93 counties currently have no active lawyers, and 18 have three or fewer attorneys, according to the Nebraska State Bar Association.

That shortage is projected to expand to 16 counties with no lawyers, and 32 with three or fewer by 2027, due to retirement of lawyers in rural areas.

“We hear from attorneys in rural Nebraska that they’d like to retire (but) their clients won’t let them,” Liz Neeley, the executive director of the Nebraska State Bar Association told a legislative committee this spring.

That’s because there’s a lack of replacements for them, Neeley said. Some public defender/county attorney jobs have been vacant for six months in rural counties without a single applicant, she said, and a few jobs have been vacant for more than a year.

Under Sen. Conrad’s proposed Legislative Bill 1195, the loan repayment program would be expanded to larger counties, such as Grand Island, Kearney, Hastings and Scottsbluff.

Killed by salary parity

Funding for expanding the program, about $500,000, was projected to come from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, which has amassed a reserve fund of millions of dollars via legal settlements it obtains from class-action lawsuits.

But LB 1195, as originally proposed, failed to pass. The issue that killed it was salary parity — whether deputy county attorneys should be paid the same salary as deputy public defenders.

“It was really disappointing,” Conrad said. “We were all rowing in the same direction, and then we got tripped up on this parity issue.”

Representatives of the state’s county attorneys argued that the jobs are different, and shouldn’t get the same pay, and that local counties — not the state — should decide what they pay their employees. The parity issue arose during later crafting of the bill, and ended the county attorneys’ support for it.

Once a Husker, always a Husker. That’s the saying around the Nebraska football fanbase. It’s with that sentiment in mind that we issue a heartfelt condolences to former head coach Mike Riley.

Riley, who coached for the Nebraska Cornhuskers from 2014 to 2017, reportedly lost his wife, Dee Riley this weekend. While he hasn’t made an official announcement, news spread quickly through a surrogate on social media, Sunday evening.

Kerry Eggers, a long time sportswriter for The Oregonian took to Twitter to make the unfortunate announcement. 

“Dee Riley, wife of ex-@BeaverFootball⁩ coach Mike Riley, has passed away. She was 70,” Eggers wrote. “They were married for 43 years. It was one of the best marriages ever. Dee was the ultimate coach’s wife. She was loyal, supportive, kind and caring with everyone. R.I.P Dee Riley.”

Before coming to Nebraska, Riley was the longtime head coach of the Oregon State Beavers and for a time, was easily that program’s most successful coach as he built them up from being an also-ran in the Pac-12.

Dee was indeed a staple of whatever community her husband belonged to. She was often spotted at University of Nebraska sporting events with the former head coach and could even be seen making her way into the stadium with the football team.

This news is especially painful not just because they were such an obviously loving couple, but because they were both seen as genuinely good people. While Riley’s tenure was not considered a success (despite two bowl trips in three seasons) with the Cornhuskers, he was someone who offered a positive outlook during a dark time in Lincoln that still hasn’t ended.

Just earlier this month, college football veteran writer Mike Farrell wrote about the nicest head coaches he’s ever dealt with. It should come as no surprise the former Nebraska football program leader was No. 2 on the list.

My condolences go out to a very good man and his family who are no doubt dealing with a very heavy heart today.

As the Nebraska football team works hard to secure some commitments as we enter the dead period, the Huskers coaches are ensuring they’re not the only ones working on guys like Christian Jones. There’s been some heavy peer recruiting for one of the state’s best prospects in the 2025 class as well.

Enter one Caleb Benning. While Dylan Raiola and Daniel Kaelin have gotten the most attention for working on peer recruiting, Benning might be hte best choice for Jones. After all, the two were teammates at Omaha Westside. Who better to make the pitch that they could be teammates again. 

Benning also isn’t leaving anything up in the air. While he works on Jones, he’s trying to get some help of his own. So he took to social media to try and get the pressure really put on the 4-star linebacker and get him to commit to the Nebraska football team.

Benning quote tweeted a post from his former high school teammate that showed Christian Jones on an official visit with the Huskers. He added the caption, “everyone tell him to stay home.”

Though the tweet was mostly a joke to show the Westside star how much Cornhuskers fans wanted the linebacker to stay in-state, it also did get plenty of people to tweet their support.

The fight for Jones could be nearing an end. It’s not necessarily an automatic Cornhuskers win considering the interest and attention he’s gotten from some of the best programs in the country.

For a while now, Jones has been seen as a lean towards NU. Benning might simply be making sure that he understands how important it is for him to call Lincoln home. Nebraska football fans and coaches, and players are certainly hoping that’s the deal.