NATIONAL CENSUS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION
Law societies across Australia have joined forces to create the fi rst national snapshot of solicitors in the 2011 Law Society National Profi le.
The Profi le was commissioned by the Law Society of New South Wales on behalf of the national Conference of Law Societies and reveals important demographic data about Australian solicitors.
It is the fi rst time all eight state and territory law societies have worked together to combine key demographic data. The Profi le identifi es New South Wales as being home to 41 per cent, or nearly 25,000 of the nation’s lawyers.
Drawing on information provided by each of the state and territory law societies, the Profi le contains detailed demographic data about the solicitors and law practices which make up the legal profession with a view to identifying and monitoring trends as comparative data becomes available. It provides leading statistics on solicitor age, gender split, locations and size of fi rm, which will allow states and territories to compare their local populations.
This report will also act as a benchmark to identify emerging trends over time, which will become increasingly important as the nation’s lawyers move towards a more unifi ed profession.
In addition, it identifi es a number of challenges that are facing the profession on a national scale such as the low proportion of solicitors practising in regional Australia.
Some of the key fi ndings from the report are detailed below. It should be noted that in some cases information was not received from all jurisdictions and this is detailed in the full report prepared by Urbis and available on the Law Society of New South Wales website.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE CENSUS BY MICHAEL TIDBALL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE LAW SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Key information about Australian solicitors
As of October 2011, there were 59,280 practising solicitors in Australia. Of these, 32, 356 (54.6 per cent) were male and 26, 294 (45.4 per cent) were female. The Northern Territory had the highest proportion of female solicitors (55.0 per cent) and Tasmania had the highest proportion of males (60.7 per cent).
The average age of Australian solicitors in 2011 was 42 years with a similar age profi le shared across all states and territories. Just over one third of solicitors were aged under 35 years (35.3 per cent), with a further third aged between 35 and 49 years (35.3 per cent). A smaller proportion was aged 50 years or over (28.9 per cent). The age profi le diff ered substantially by gender with close to half of female solicitors aged less than 35 years compared with one quarter of male solicitors. Similar trends were evident in relation to years since admission. 5,946 solicitors were registered to practice for the fi rst time in the 12 months prior to October 2011, representing 10.5 per cent of practising solicitors.
As of October 2011, the majority of solicitors holding Australian Practising Certifi cates were private practitioners (73.0 per cent) with 14.8 per cent in corporate and 9.3 per cent in government practice. Tasmania had the highest proportion of private practitioners (96.3 per cent), New South Wales had the greatest concentration of corporate lawyers (18.7 per cent) and the Australian Capital Territory had the largest proportion of government solicitors (37.9 per cent). There were variations in terms of gender across the diff erent sectors of the profession. The ratio of female to male solicitors was higher in the government (57.5 per cent) and corporate sectors (58.3 per cent), while males were more strongly represented than females in private practice (59.5 per cent). There were also variations across the sectors in terms of age with around four fi fths of solicitors in corporate and government practice aged under 50 years compared with around two thirds of private practitioners.
In October 2011, there were 8,234 private law fi rms operating in Australia. The bulk of these (83.4 per cent) were sole practitioner fi rms (fi rms with one principal). This represented over a third of solicitors in private practice (37.5 per cent). At the other end of the spectrum, just over one fi fth (21.4 per cent) of all private practitioners were working in large fi rms (with 21 or more partners).
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