Judicial Impacts

A post today borne out of my Sunday morning newspaper skimming and not out of any hard facts. One of the issues that is important to me personally is "youth flight," in which upstate NY (and a lot of the northeast) lose capable younger folks to areas with more opportunities. It's alternately called "brain drain", which I dislike because I don't relate the phenomenon to intelligence.

However, I do wonder about some of the impacts on our legal system. The most obvious connection, I think, is to the pool of defendants who will repeatedly be coming through the system. I'm also wondering if there's ever been a study into the quality of legal services offered, especially in the most rural counties. Which isn't to say there aren't good lawyers in such places--idle speculation on my part having grown up in a rural area. Lastly, my mind wanders to the effects on the judiciary itself. If towns are losing population, especially the population with potential and capacity, who is remaining behind to run for the elective offices? Again, it may be a non-issue, but when I'm reading of the declining population and the continuing population loss, I start to wonder about some of these issues. In another 15-20 years, will there be competent and committed people in some of these areas to run for town justice? Do we need to move to another system in upstate, such as district courts?

Idle speculation, but I think it's related to the foresight we need as a profession and as citizens of the state.