According to the Outline for Comprehensive Deepening of the Judicial and Administrative Reform (2018-2022) released by the Ministry of Justice, by 2022，the total number of lawyers in the country will reach 620,000 and every ten thousand people will have 4.2 lawyers.
To achieve this goal, the number of lawyers in China will maintain an average annual growth rate of 12% until 2022 with an average of 50,000 lawyers increased per year.
The following trends and laws have been discovered based on the latest data on lawyers from 14 provinces and cities in 2019:
Guangdong has the largest number of lawyers, followed by Beijing and Jiangsu
Guangdong has always had the largest number of lawyers with 48,971 lawyers in 2019, accounting for 10.4% of the total number of lawyers in the country. Close behind, the number of lawyers in Beijing reached 34,755 and the number of lawyers in Jiangsu reached 30,461 in 2019. Guangdong, Beijing and Jiangsu have become the first three provinces and cities in China to have more than 30,000 lawyers.
Most provinces and cities have witnessed the growth rate of more than 10%, with slower growth rate in Beijing
In 2019, the number of lawyers in the country grew by 11.8% year-on-year. Correspondingly, most provinces and cities witnessed the growth rate of more than 10%, which even reached 12% to 19%.
In contrast, the growth rate of lawyers in Beijing was only 7.2%, significantly lower than that of other provinces and cities. This may be related to the previously stricter access to law practice in Beijing.
The number of lawyers per 10,000 people is significantly larger in Beijing and Shanghai than in other provinces and cities nationwide
Based on the data in 2019, Beijing and Shanghai have significantly more lawyers per 10,000 people than the rest of the country, 16 and 11 lawyers per 10,000 people respectively.
Law firms with more than 100 employees make up the smallest share with the fastest growth rate
In terms of changes in firm size, the number of law firms with more than 100 employees still makes up a small share, that is, less than 1%. However, the three years from 2017 to 2019 saw the fastest growth rate of more than 20%. It can be predicted that by 2020, the number of law firms with more than 100 employees is expected to exceed 400.
The proportion of law firms with fewer than 10 and more than 50 employees in total law firms continues to increase
The vast majority of domestic law firms are small firms with fewer than 10 employees, and the trend from 2017 to 2019 shows that the number and proportion of small law firms are still on the rise. At the same time, the absolute number and proportion of large and medium-sized law firms with 50 employees or above continue to grow.
It should be noted that forms of legal services are under constant innovation. Legal services are an important part of trade in services at the 2020 CIFTIS, which took place in Beijing from September 4 to 9. The Integrated Legal and Commercial Service Platform for “The Belt and Road Initiative” made a public appearance in the lobby of the 2020 CIFTIS as one of the eight “treasures”. The names of mediators at home and abroad who have contributed to the mediation of cooperation on international commercial affairs appeared in the exhibition hall.
At the 5th “The Belt and Road Initiative” Services Capacity Construction Conference 2020 and BNRMC Global Mediators Conference, Zhang Jun, Vice President of the China Law Society, said that China is promoting the implementation of the Integrated Legal and Commercial Service Platform for “The Belt and Road Initiative”, which should and can play a greater role in the field of international commercial conciliation. To this end, legislation on commercial conciliation should be adopted as soon as possible and the relevant law on commercial conciliation should be placed on the agenda as the legal basis for the approval of the Singapore Convention on Mediation.
