The Law Society & Bar Standards Board publish figures
More solicitors, less partners, fewer law firms—official statistics have revealed the state of the profession.
The Law Society’s latest Annual Statistics Report for 2014, published this week, provides a vivid snapshot of the profession on 31 July 2014.
It shows a 2% rise in the number of practising solicitors to a total of 130,382 in the year up to the report, mainly due to larger firms expanding their businesses. Overall, the number of practising solicitors has grown by more than a third in the last decade.
Law Society chief executive Catherine Dixon says: “It is encouraging that the legal services market is back in the business of hiring after a rocky few years.”
Very large firms, with more than 81 partners, have increased their numbers of solicitors and partners—they employed 28% of all private practitioners in 2014. While their share of the solicitor population has increased, the number of solicitors employed by smaller firms has fallen.
Law firms are dwindling in number—the report counts 9,542 law firms, compared to 9,807 in 2013 and 10,102 in 2012.
Fewer solicitors are likely to make partner—less than one-third of solicitors in private practice are partners compared to 37.4% ten years ago.
It’s bad news for students, as well—there was a six per cent drop in the number of training contracts registered.
Black, Asian and other ethnic minority practising solicitors account for 15% of the profession. Women and men are now almost equal in number, although women are more likely to work in-house and tend to leave the profession earlier—they make up 60% of solicitors under the age of 35 but only 40% of solicitors beyond that.
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has also published statistics this week, after introducing new reporting mechanisms in the past year.
There are 15,716 barristers in practice, of which 12,709 are self-employed, 2,794 are employed and 211 do both. Men make up most of the profession—10,140 barristers are male, 5,545 are female and 31 preferred not to say. There are 498 sole practitioners.
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