More doctors per head than lawyers

28 March 2013

More doctors per head than lawyers

New Zealand has more doctors per head of population than lawyers, according to the New Zealand Law Society.

A feature in the latest issue of the Law Society’s magazine LawTalk on legal profession demographics shows that there are 11,541 New Zealand-based lawyers. A further 464 practising overseas gives a total of 12,005 lawyers holding practising certificates.

LawTalk says this is a ratio of one lawyer to every 372 New Zealanders. However, it says information extracted from the reports of other professional regulators shows one doctor for every 321 New Zealanders and one chartered accountant for every 181.

Nurses (one for every 96) and teachers (one for every 46) are also more plentiful than lawyers.

The information also shows that Wellington has the highest proportion of lawyers per head, with one lawyer for every 89 Wellingtonians. Warkworth (one per 194) and Kerikeri (one per 205) also have a high proportion of lawyers.

Population centres with the lowest number of lawyers per head are Kawerau (one per 6940), Wairoa (one per 4300) and Taihape (one per 2000).

LawTalk says New Zealand lags behind at least three countries in its ratio of lawyers per head of population. Israel has one lawyer for every 171 people, the United States one for every 256 and Brazil one for every 316.

Statistics: A PDF of the full Snapshot of the New Zealand Legal Profession is available here: http://www.lawsociety.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/64011/Snapshot-2013-Web.pdf

ENDS

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