In the

     United States Court of Appeals
                  For the Seventh Circuit
                      ____________________
No. 23-2946
LAZEREK AUSTIN,
                                                   Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                  v.

CHERYL HANSEN, et al.,
                                                Defendants-Appellees.
                      ____________________

          Appeal from the United States District Court for the
                      Central District of Illinois.
           No. 1:20-cv-01399-JES — James E. Shadid, Judge.
                      ____________________

     SUBMITTED AUGUST 14, 2024 * — DECIDED JUNE 6, 2025
                 ____________________

   Before EASTERBROOK, HAMILTON, and BRENNAN, Circuit
Judges.
    HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Lazerek Austin, a state
prisoner and pro se litigant, sued three medical providers

   * We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because

the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments,
and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. Fed R. App. P.
34(a)(2)(C).
2                                                     No. 23-2946

under 

 alleging that they were deliberately in-
different to his serious medical needs in violation of the
Eighth Amendment. Litigation proceeded for nearly three
years and ended when the district court entered summary
judgment for the defendants. We address in this opinion a
problem we have not addressed before in a precedential opin-
ion: Austin’s contention that the district court abused its dis-
cretion when it stopped searching for recruited counsel on his
behalf and required him to continue litigating pro se. We ad-
dress Austin’s other appellate arguments in a non-preceden-
tial order also issued today.
    Federal courts lack the power to compel an attorney to
provide free services to a civil litigant. Mallard v. United States
Dist. Ct., 

 (1989) (holding predecessor version
of 

(e)(1) “does not authorize the federal courts
to make coercive appointments of counsel”). Indeed, this is
why we try to take care to speak of “recruitment” and not “ap-
pointment” in this context. We have often noted the difficulty
district courts may encounter in trying to recruit pro bono
counsel for civil litigants who are indigent. See, e.g., Watts v.
Kidman, 

 (7th Cir. 2022) (holding that courts
may consider “the perceived merits of—or likelihood of suc-
cess on—an indigent plaintiff’s claims” when allocating
scarce resource of volunteer attorneys).
   There are more of these litigants than available volunteer
lawyers throughout much of the circuit. Thus, even when the
court believes that a litigant meets the criteria for recruited
counsel—as the judge here initially thought Austin did—the
court may not be able to find one despite reasonable efforts.
Wilborn v. Ealey, 

 (7th Cir. 2018) (“[I]dentify-
ing a volunteer is not always possible, especially for cases
No. 23-2946                                                      3

outside of major metropolitan areas.”). The district court in
this case made reasonable—and commendable—efforts to
find a volunteer to represent Austin but was unsuccessful. In
our view, the district court was not required to search for a
volunteer lawyer indefinitely. That would be a sufficient basis
for rejecting Austin’s argument here. The district court also
went further, took a fresh look at Austin’s ability to litigate his
case without counsel, and reasonably concluded that Austin
was capable of litigating his claim without counsel. That is an
additional reason to affirm.
    In the fall of 2020, Austin filed this § 1983 lawsuit. Shortly
after his complaint survived screening under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915A, Austin moved for recruited counsel. In his motion,
he said that he had contacted several attorneys but could not
secure representation. He asserted that he could not litigate
the case himself because he is severely mentally ill, could not
understand medical documents, and was in an administrative
segregation wing of a new prison without access to legal as-
sistance and with diminished access to law library services.
The court granted Austin’s motion for recruited counsel but
advised Austin that it could only request a volunteer.
    Discovery continued, and after several months, the court
entered an order explaining that its efforts to recruit counsel
for Austin had been unsuccessful. The court’s clerk had con-
tacted a list of attorneys who had previously expressed a will-
ingness to take pro bono cases and sent an email to more than
1,000 attorneys in the Seventh Circuit Bar Association, but no
one agreed to represent Austin. The court emphasized that the
need for lawyers far exceeds the number of available attor-
neys, especially in the Central District of Illinois, and it deter-
mined that continued efforts to recruit counsel would be
4                                                   No. 23-2946

futile. Regardless, the court continued, Austin was competent
to represent himself. He had by then shown that he could “ac-
tively and aggressively” litigate his case by participating in
discovery and responding to motions with clear facts and case
law to support his arguments.
   Austin continued to represent himself, filing discovery
motions and responding to the defendants’ summary-judg-
ment motions. Eventually, the district court entered summary
judgment for the defendants, concluding that a reasonable
jury could not find that they violated Austin’s constitutional
rights.
    Austin appealed. Still representing himself, he argues that
the district court erred by not recruiting counsel for him after
initially granting his motion. We review the handling of the
motion for an abuse of discretion and ask whether the district
court “applied the correct legal standard and reached a rea-
sonable decision based on facts supported by the record.”
Pruitt v. Mote, 

 (7th Cir. 2007) (en banc). Even
when the district court concludes that it should recruit a law-
yer, however, one may not be available or willing to take on
the case. We have said that the district court’s application of
the Pruitt standard “should be informed by the realities of re-
cruiting counsel in the district.” McCaa v. Hamilton, 

 (7th Cir. 2020). Those realities differ widely among
districts. And taking a case through trial-level litigation to
judgment ordinarily requires far more time and resources
than handling an appeal, which further shrinks the supply of
lawyers who can absorb the costs in time and money. See 

   Nevertheless, Austin contends that the district court here
did not do enough to find him a lawyer. We disagree. The
court’s initial ruling did not create a right to a lawyer; such a
No. 23-2946                                                              5

right simply does not exist in federal civil litigation. Pruitt, 

. Nor did it create an obligation for the court to
search indefinitely for one. Wilborn, 

. The rec-
ord reflects reasonable efforts by the court to find pro bono
counsel. When those efforts were not successful, the court rea-
sonably decided that continued efforts were futile because of
the scarcity of available attorneys. See 

 By considering the
high demand for pro bono resources specific to the Central
District of Illinois (500 pro se prisoner cases filed each year
with nearly all plaintiffs requesting recruited counsel), Judge
Shadid’s ruling embraced the practical approach we empha-
sized in Pruitt. See also Watts, 42 F.4th at 763–64 (emphasizing
practical problems and district court discretion in this area);
McCaa, 

 (same). The district court did not abuse
its discretion in declining to make further efforts. 1
    Further, when he could not find volunteer counsel despite
his efforts, the judge notified Austin and then engaged in the
analysis required by Pruitt before deciding that Austin could
proceed pro se. When considering a motion to recruit counsel,
a district court must consider first whether the indigent plain-
tiff made a reasonable attempt to obtain counsel and, second,
whether the plaintiff is capable of litigating his case, given its
difficulty. Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 654–55. Here, the court appropri-
ately verified that Austin had tried to find counsel himself and


    1 Our decision in this precedential opinion tracks our non-preceden-

tial decision in Roberts v. Neal, 713 Fed. App’x 509 (7th Cir. 2018), where
the district court had contacted more than 100 lawyers but found no one
willing to represent the plaintiff. We held that the district court had not
abused its discretion by deciding the case based on the plaintiff’s pro se
efforts, saying “At some point a court must be entitled to stop beating the
bushes for counsel.” Id. at 510.
6                                                    No. 23-2946

then reasonably concluded that the difficulty of his case did
not exceed his capabilities. Though prison medical-care
claims can be complex, the court explained that Austin had
competently litigated his case so far. He had “clearly set forth
the factual basis” of his constitutional claim in his complaint,
participated in discovery and filed successful motions, and
“unlike many pro se litigants,” supported his summary-judg-
ment response with specific facts and relevant case law. Fur-
thermore, Austin had demonstrated his ability to describe his
symptoms and requests for treatment and the defendants’ re-
sponses. To assist Austin with continuing to litigate himself,
the court also offered additional time for discovery. See Giles
v. Godinez, 

 (7th Cir. 2019) (advising district
courts to take this approach). Thus, the court did not abuse its
discretion when it determined that—based on Austin’s per-
formance litigating his claim—he was competent to continue
without recruited counsel. See Ealy v. Watson, 

,
967–68 (7th Cir. 2024).
    We will assume that the district court’s analysis under
Pruitt may have been influenced by the inability to recruit
counsel, but that is part of the practical approach we have en-
dorsed. Austin understandably argues that pro bono counsel
would have helped him conduct additional discovery and
better convey his injury at summary judgment. The question
in both the district court and on appeal, however, is not
whether an attorney would have presented the case better.
Pruitt, at 

. Unfortunately, Austin faced litiga-
tion hurdles that many pro se plaintiffs face. See Mejia v.
Pfister, 

, 419–20 (7th Cir. 2021). Judge Shadid un-
dertook the “difficult and unfortunate calculus” of allocating
limited legal resources. 

; see also McCaa, 

 (acknowledging “difficult mix of factors weighing for and
No. 23-2946                                                   7

against recruiting counsel”). Because he conducted an “indi-
vidualized and practical inquiry” into Austin’s ability to liti-
gate his case, Ealy, 109 F.4th at 967–68, he did not abuse his
discretion.
                                                  AFFIRMED.