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Qld has 4% more lawyers this year than last
The 2021–22 annual report for the Queensland Legal Services Commission was tabled in the state’s Parliament last week, noting an increase in the numbers of both practising solicitors and barristers.
Jerome Doraisamy
According to the Queensland LSC’s annual report, there were 15,792 practising certificate holders in the state at 30 June 2022, marking an increase of 4.1 per cent on the previous reporting year (not including government legal officers that do not hold practising certificates).
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There were 1,161 barristers at the end of the last financial year, up 2 per cent from FY21 (1,136 in 2020–21). There were also 14,631 practising solicitors as of the end of June, up from 14,338 at the same point last year, for an increase of 4.27 per cent.
Women markedly outnumber men in the state’s professional ranks, making up 52.13 per cent of all practitioners compared to 47.82 per cent. Women make up a higher share of solicitors in Queensland, too (54.25 per cent compared to 45.7 per cent).
However, women are significantly underrepresented at the bar, making up just 25.41 per cent of barristers, compared to men, who account for 74.59 per cent of such practitioners.
There has also been a rise in the number of law practices across Queensland in the past year.
As of 30 June 2022, there was a total of 2,529 solicitor law practices in the state, an increase of 1.85 per cent from 2021. There are 1,648 incorporated legal practices, making up two-thirds of the state’s solicitor law practices (65.16 per cent, an increase of 6.32 per cent from last year).
There are now 867 other solicitor law practices — i.e., sole practitioners or partnerships — which is a 5.45 rise in the 2021 numbers. There are also 14 multidisciplinary practices in the state, accounting for just 0.55 per cent of all solicitor law practices.
The stats about where Queensland’s legal cohort is at follows reporting by Lawyers Weekly earlier this year about the breakdown of practitioners in NSW, which also saw 4 per cent growth in its number of practising lawyers.
