When Mack Tallant returned home to Western North Carolina to practice law in 1995, he was one of five attorneys based out of Graham County. In 2026, his is the only full-time law office.
“I’m either the best attorney in the county or the worst attorney in the county depending on the day,” he said with a chuckle.
Tallant, 57, is hitting the short-term planning stages for his retirement. While some lawyers will continue to work into their 70s and even 80s, he wants to slow down and enjoy the fruits of his labor. However, he’s concerned with the state of the judicial system in the region and how future generations will be affected.
Tallant, who grew up in neighboring Cherokee County, initially practiced law in a variety of areas, although he admitted he’s never had a stomach for criminal defense work, which is adversarial and emotionally taxing. Now, he spends 95% of his time as a real estate attorney, satisfying the growing demand for such work with people from out of state purchasing and building second homes. He also works from time to time on wills and estates.
Even still, Tallant said that he feels spread too thin.
“I can’t always get to things in what I would consider a timely manner or go in depth on things I feel like I need to spend time with,” he said.
Drying Out
The concern Tallant described to The Smoky Mountain News has been echoed by leaders in the region’s judicial system as the state grapples with an increasing number of legal deserts in rural counties, defined as an area with less than one attorney per 1,000 residents. Almost half of the state’s 100 counties are legal deserts, and the majority of North Carolina lawyers practice in just five urban counties. The seven westernmost counties comprise the 43rd Judicial District — Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Swain, Clay, Graham and Cherokee. As of December 2023, Graham and Macon are considered legal deserts, although given recent trends, it’s likely that Swain has joined the club.
Legal deserts create a host of problems. Parties in cases must travel longer distances and spend more time dealing with court cases, and backlogs can develop in civil and criminal court, delaying due process and wasting taxpayer dollars. According to an article published on the American Bar Association website, children in rural areas are more likely to experience maltreatment and become involved in the juvenile court system than children in urban areas. The judicial district’s resident senior superior court judge, Roy Wijewickrama, has been calling for more attorneys to practice in the area for years, even back to his time on the District Court bench in 2024. Wijewickrama believes the problem is getting worse. Echoing Tallant’s concerns, the judge noted the large number of lawyers who’ve retired over the last decade and all the years of experience they’ve taken with them. With a lot of older attorneys practicing in WNC, that problem will only get worse, Wijewickrama said.
“They are not being replaced,” he said.
Wijewickrama was born and raised in Haywood County and returned home in 2001 after law school. He worked as an assistant district attorney, tribal prosecutor for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and in private practice before becoming a district court judge in 2014.
Coming home and entering the legal field used to be more common than it is now, Wijewickrama said. He attributes the change to a growing disparity in pay and perks between WNC and bigger cities, which also offer unique opportunities for career growth, mentorship and specialization. Of course, some are simply drawn to the exciting big-city lifestyle. He could think of several law students over the years for whom he’s written recommendations but ended up in the Charlotte or Raleigh areas or even out of state.
“Now, I’ll tell them I’ll write it under one condition — if they come back to Western North Carolina and practice law,” he joked.
Some attorneys who practice in the region may also hear the call of higher-paying opportunities in their own backyard. Several sources interviewed for this story said the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians draws talented lawyers with positions in one of its departments that offer better pay and benefits. EBCI Attorney General Mike McConnell did not respond to a request for an interview about trends seen on the Qualla Boundary.
The Public Servants
District Attorney Ashley Hornsby, originally from Henderson County, returned to the region and advanced her legal career into elected office in 2014. She is running unopposed this year to secure her fourth term. Hornsby moved home after graduating law school in 2003 and worked for the district there before moving out to Franklin and joining then-District Attorney Mike Bonfoey’s staff in 2005, where she served until she was elected almost a decade later. She didn’t know early in her career where she’d end up, but she knew she’d found her calling.
Hornsby is a career prosecutor. She knew what she wanted at just 13, when she witnessed part of a murder trial and was fascinated that there was a person arguing on behalf of crime victims to secure justice. She always had the desire to come home, although she admitted that in Henderson County, it felt odd to send people she knew to jail. Moving west to Franklin also gave her the opportunity to try “bigger,” “more complicated” cases, she said. Hornsby believes that during her tenure in elected office, the hiring process in her office hasn’t changed much other than having more positions to fill. The larger staff has been necessary to meet a growing demand.
“I will say that the workload has not eased up at all,” Hornsby said. “In a lot of ways, it’s gotten harder.”
While she said she hasn’t had trouble finding talented attorneys, it does take a unique kind of person to want to be a prosecutor, which winnows the field off the bat and creates a relatively high attrition rate.
“I think most of the people in this office love being prosecutors,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. But it’s hard to keep people when the day in and day out is pounding the pavement for clients.”
Like in other legal offices, Hornsby has recently lost senior personnel with decades of experience. She’s been able to fill those positions with young attorneys, most of whom have ties to this area. Those established support systems help in myriad ways, including financial. The salary for inexperienced assistant district attorneys is $57,200, although Hornsby said starting pay in her office is higher. Nonetheless, there are likely always more lucrative options.
“It’s still nothing compared to the student loan debt and what you can make if you just walk out the door, frankly, and work half as hard,” she said.
Sitting at the table across from the prosecutor in many criminal cases is an attorney from the public defender office, which in the western counties is headed up by Chief Public Defender Janna Allison. Allison was appointed in November 2023 and sworn in a couple of months later. The office began taking cases in April 2024. Seven attorneys initially served Haywood and Jackson counties and there were four serving the five westernmost counties.
Lawyers have managed a steady caseload, but the western office in Cherokee County has never been fully staffed.
“It’s hard to get people to come out here,” Allison said.
The state Indigent Defense Services Office recruits prospective staffers at law schools across North Carolina to work at any of the 27 public defender offices in the state. Allison also advertises the openings statewide. Her pay scale mirrors that of the district attorney’s office, and like Hornsby, she’s seen young attorneys decline a job because the pay doesn’t square with the cost of living.
Allison said that some promising candidates stop returning phone calls. Other times, there are complications to work out like transferring a bar license from another state. In those cases, Allison will hold the job while the person remedies the issue. Sometimes, after months of waiting, they will decide they don’t want the job. Now Allison asks that all candidates update her monthly, so she isn’t wasting her time holding the opening.
While criminal defendants are entitled to legal counsel, that isn’t the case for those embroiled in a civil matter, including foreclosures, evictions, child custody cases and employment issues. In Western North Carolina, that’s where Pisgah Legal Services comes into play. The nonprofit’s mission is to “pursue justice by providing legal assistance and advocacy to help low-income people in Western North Carolina meet their basic needs and improve their lives.” Chief Program Officer Molly Maynard grew up in the southeastern part of the state but moved to Asheville after law school, where she has practiced for the last 15 years.
Maynard also referenced a lack of affordable housing among the hurdles when hiring.
“Attorneys who tend to come out of school with significant law school debt along with the high cost of living in Western North Carolina have hurt our ability to hire and bring people into the area,” Maynard said. “On occasion, when we had people who we interviewed and made an offer, they’d try to find a place to rent and said, ‘We can’t make it work.’”
Another challenge, Maynard said, is that all PLS staff are subject to “vicarious trauma” due to the difficult nature of their clients’ cases, especially in the wake of trying times like the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Helene.
“It can be really hard over the years, so some folks will change practices because of that,” she said.
Systemic ramifications, systemic solutions
Allison’s public defender office handles a heavy workload, but when there are co-defendants in a criminal matter like a drug trafficking case, it can only represent one person. The same problem can exist when two parties in the same matter seek representation from PLS. Representing multiple individuals creates a conflict. When this happens, Allison calls other attorneys to see who can pick up the other co-defendants. She begins with the court-appointed list made up of attorneys willing to represent indigent defendants for a set rate. The list used to be robust but has dwindled over the last decade. When those on the court-appointed list are unable, Allison said it can be difficult — although not yet impossible — to find a lawyer willing to step in. Sometimes she has to look outside the district to Buncombe County.
If more total lawyers means more attorneys on the court-appointed list, Allison said that would solve a lot of problems and save a lot of time.
“It would be nice if more people were on the list,” she said.
Hornsby would also like to see more people on the court-appointed list, or even just more attorneys willing to take criminal defense work. When the process to get counsel for those facing charges drags on, it slows the whole system “almost to a halt,” she said. Those who do represent criminal defendants have cases spread out. This can cause scheduling conflicts between clients in different counties. Lawyers can’t be two places at one time, so cases get continued.
“Victims suffer. The public suffers. Defendants suffer,” Hornsby said. “We’ll have victims show up in court and say the case has been on five times already. They’re sitting there and sitting there and sitting there, and the attorney for the defendant may be tied up in DSS court, which takes precedent over district court, and it will get continued again.”
This problem that is unlikely to see a quick fix without a large inflow of taxpayer dollars, but judicial officials are working on creative solutions. North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby has worked to bring more attorneys to underserved areas, using his Commission on Professionalism to prioritize the issue, including bringing rural lawyers to law schools to speak on panels to dispel “myths” about practicing in rural areas. While the pay may not be as good, the tightknit community, recreational activities and quality of life can be a worthy tradeoff, especially in the mountains.
Newby has since also created Legal Oasis Fellowships, which provide a “unique, competitive” opportunity for law students who want to work in underserved areas after graduation. Fellows can participate in a 10-week summer program where they gain practical legal experience in one of those underserved communities, connecting them with courthouse personnel and the local bar. This offers experience and chances for networking, potentially setting up a stable job before they even graduate. It also comes with a $5,000 stipend, and local host employers can help arrange housing.
Allison said her office hosted an intern through that program over the summer. That individual hopes to move back to Western North Carolina along with his partner, also an attorney.
“My intern this year was excellent, and he does hope to come back,” she said. “We’ll do what it takes.”