I don't know about patent lawyers, but a surprising amount of law work can get done remotely. If you want a good patent lawyer do you hire in your city? I wouldn't, its a federal law, and highly specialized. I would hire whoever is best regardless of location

I would imagine that some of the best patent lawyers in the whole country are actually in little nothing towns in East Texas since that district is where much of the patent suits for the nation get filed. For a variety of reasons, most patent law is litigated in Texas. Texas handles more federal patent suits than any other state by a margin of ~2x.