The Economic Justice Imperative for Lawyers in “Trump Country”

This article serves as a call to action for rural law schools to meaningfully incorporate economic justice into transactional legal education, and in doing so, train much needed rural advocates, legal experts, and local leaders. Rural areas are continuously portrayed as “Trump Country” in today’s mainstream media coverage, which largely focuses on socio-cultural differences between urban and rural areas. Many rural scholars and activists are troubled by the “Trump Country” label as it masks the structural poverty issues that lead to housing insecurity, water insecurity, poor public health indicators, unemployment, underemployment, troubled public education systems, and environmental degradation impacting both rural and urban spaces. Moreover, the “Trump Country” narrative makes it difficult to engage in inclusive and intersectional economic justice work, which is necessary to build coalitions and advocate for disenfranchised populations in both urban and rural places.