Nebraska

Rural NE county attorneys, public defenders confront 'legal desert' in hiring new lawyers • Nebraska Examiner

Published

6 months ago

June 24, 2024

Rural NE county attorneys, public defenders confront 'legal desert' in hiring new lawyers • Nebraska Examiner

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.

(Getty Images)

“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.”

State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)

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.

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, executive director, Nebraska Bar Association

“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.

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Nebraska

Georgia Transfer Defensive Back Justyn Rhett Commits to Nebraska

Published

3 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

Georgia Transfer Defensive Back Justyn Rhett Commits to Nebraska

An SEC defensive back is headed to Lincoln via the transfer portal.

Former Georgia DB Justyn Rhett has committed to Nebraska. He has three years of eligibility remaining.

Rhett appeared in four games over two seasons for the powerhouse Bulldogs. He finishes his Georgia career with three tackles.

The 6-1, 200-pound DB got to Athens from the football factory out of Las Vegas, Bishop Gorman. A four-star prospect out of high school, Rhett was selected to play in Under Armour All-America Game and picked Georgia over Alabama, Michigan, Florida State, LSU, Tennessee, Oregon, Notre Dame, Oregon, and more.

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Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.

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Nebraska

900 Square Feet: Recapping Louisville-Pitt, Penn State-Nebraska

Published

11 hours ago

December 21, 2024

Press Room

900 Square Feet: Recapping Louisville-Pitt, Penn State-Nebraska

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — One match left: Louisville, which knocked out Pittsburgh, plays Penn State, which ousted Nebraska with a five-set reverse sweep.

ESPN and Big Ten Network analyst Emily Ehman and VolleyballMag editor Lee Feinswog look back on an incredible Thursday night at the NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship:

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Nebraska

Dana Holgorsen, John Butler talk bowl prep and being “light on your feet”

Published

18 hours ago

December 21, 2024

Press Room

Dana Holgorsen, John Butler talk bowl prep and being “light on your feet”

In today’s college football, coaches must have their head on a swivel.

That’s true during the season of course, but it’s now a way of life once the transfer portal opens in December and rosters start moving and shaking. And things get even more wild if you’re at a program that’s playing in a bowl game, or even the College Football Playoff.

It’s a balancing act that all staffs are going through right now. Nebraska’s included.

“You’ve got to be light on your feet, man,” Nebraska defensive coordinator John Butler said during a press conference over Zoom on Thursday. “I mean, you’re maybe in the middle of a game-plan meeting and all of a sudden you got to jump out and you’re having a 30-minute meeting with a prospect that’s in on a visit, or you’re jumping on a Zoom doing it. Or you’re watching 15 minutes of tape to make sure that, hey, this guy just jumped in and he wants to visit us. So I think you got to be a fast thinker and mover and a shaker, quite frankly.”

This whole process has taught Butler, who spent the 2024 season as the defensive backs coach under now-departed DC Tony White, that these traits are as important as ever: Being decisive. Being organized. Following a road map to achieve a goal and not deviating from it when there’s chaos all over.

“You’ve got to have a plan and a vision for what you’re looking for, because everything happens so fast,” Butler said. “You have a guy get in and get out, get in and get signed. And at the same time, you also got to keep an eye on your roster constantly, because there’s people reaching out. There’s people reaching out to your players, whether it’s direct or it’s people reaching out through a third party. And it’s unfortunate in this environment.

“People said, ‘Hey, it’s like NFL free agency.’ No, it’s not. NFL free agency is regulated.”

As Husker fans have come to learn, just because a player says he’s going to enter the transfer portal doesn’t mean he actually will. And sometimes when a player actually enters his name in the portal, there’s always a chance they could withdraw their name and return to their program if each side wants.

Nebraska saw that happen with defensive lineman Keona Davis, who briefly entered the portal before withdrawing and staying at NU for 2025. There was also running back Emmett Johnson — he announced he would enter the portal but never made it there.

Holgorsen played a key role in convincing Johnson to stay at Nebraska.

“We had some long talks after the season, and I got to know him better as a person,” Holgorsen said of his relationship with Johnson. “I did that with a bunch of them, but him in particular was probably about the first one that came in and was excited about what we did, but there was some buts. So we had some long talks. I think he’s a great kid and he’s going to be a special player here. Excited to coach him.”

On Holgorsen’s side of the ball, he’ll have to adjust his game plan now that he’ll be without a handful of players he was able to use during the regular season.

Running back Dante Dowdell transferred to Kentucky on Friday. A tight end Holgorsen really liked, Nate Boerkircher, transferred to Texas A&M. Receiver Isaiah Neyor has chosen to opt out of the Pinstripe Bowl to focus on his NFL aspirations. Offensive lineman Micah Mazzccua, who began the year as the starting right guard but finished the season rotating with Gunnar Gottula at left tackle, won’t play in the bowl because he’s getting surgery to fix a torn labrum he played through during the season.

There will be holes to fill on Holgorsen’s offense in the bowl game and beyond in 2025. But Holgorsen brushes all of this chaos off. He’s a go-with-the-flow guy. He doesn’t pretend to have answers to fix college football. What he does have, though, is a plan.

“There’s been a lot of talk out there about something needs to happen. That’s above my pay grade,” Holgorsen said. “So, the few kids who decided to do that (leave), we wish them well, and you just go replace them. It’s as simple as that.”

Part of that replacement process needs to happen for the bowl game with current members of the roster. Behind Emmett Johnson, expect Rahmir Johnson — he’s native of the Bronx and will have several family members and friends at Yankee Stadium — to play often as it’ll be his final game in a Husker uniform.

But with Dowdell and Gabe Ervin Jr. gone from the team, perhaps this Pinstripe Bowl will feature another big back on Nebraska’s roster who’s seldom been used: redshirt freshman Kwinten Ives, a 6-3, 210-pounder.

“You know, 23 (Dowdell) isn’t playing in the bowl game but 28 (Ives) is gonna go in there and he’s gonna play his tail off because he’s had nine spectacular practices,” Holgorsen said. “I think that’s how you got to look at it. You don’t worry about the ones that aren’t playing. You worry about the ones that are playing, and you coach them and you try to develop them, put them in position to hopefully be successful.”