Wellington top in lawyers per head

MEDIA RELEASE – For immediate use, 30 March 2012

Wellington top in lawyers per head

Wellington City has one lawyer for every 88 citizens, which is well ahead of the overall New Zealand average of one lawyer for every 390 citizens.

Information released by the New Zealand Law Society shows Wellington is well ahead of the next most-lawyered location, Warkworth, with one lawyer for 194 citizens.

The Law Society says Wellington City’s relatively high rate is driven by a high number of in-house lawyers who are employed by government or business. Of the 2,274 lawyers who work in Wellington City, 1,032 (45%) are in-house lawyers. Overall, 20% of New Zealand lawyers work in-house.

The Law Society’s magazine LawTalk says while the ratio of lawyers in Wellington is high, it is still nowhere near the District of Columbia in the United States, which has one lawyer for every 36 citizens.

Other locations with a relatively high number of lawyers per head are Kerikeri (one per 198), Alexandra (one per 237) and Auckland (one per 306).

At the other end of the spectrum, Kawerau with one lawyer per 7,000 citizens has the lowest number of lawyers per head. This is followed by Wairoa (one per 4,300), Taihape (one per 2,000) and Motueka (one per 1,800).

The Law Society says there are 11,704 lawyers who hold a current practising certificate. Of these 412 are based overseas. Men make up 55% of New Zealand lawyers.

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