The way we are

Delving into this year's annual statistic report, Neil Rose finds that 'girl power' is ripe among solicitors, profits have increased, and lawyer/population ratios show scope for growth

In the 'List of gentlemen applying to be admitted as solicitors' in the Gazette of November 1922, there is one entry of note: 'Morrison, (Miss) Carrie.' At 34, Ms Morrison was the first woman to become a solicitor but no other mention of this momentous event was made.

The following month, under the quietly amended title of 'List of people applying to be admitted as solicitors', the Gazette recorded the entry of Maud Crofts and Mary Pickup, while a month after that Mary Sykes became the fourth woman.

Shortly afterwards, the Law Society's ruling council found itself having to designate rooms at Chancery Lane, including the coal store, for conversion into 'ladies' cloakrooms'.

By the time the profession marks the 90th anniversary of Ms Morrison's achievement, many more rooms will need converting - if the profession's demographics change in the next decade as they have in the past ten years, then the majority of practising solicitors will be women.

The Society's recently published annual statistic report for 2001 reveals that overall, the total number of solicitors with practising certificates has grown by 52% since 1991; however, broken down, the number of women has jumped by 129%, compared to 26% for men.

Indeed, this move towards a female majority could be accelerated as women flood into the lower reaches of the profession in ever-increasing numbers; last year, a record 55% of new admissions to the roll were women (1992/3 was the first year they were in the majority), while the proportion of female law undergraduates rose to 63%, up from 61% a year before.

In total, as at 31 July 2001, there were 86,603 practising solicitors of whom 32,395 (37%) were women.

A further 22,950 solicitors were on the roll but without practising certific-ates, of whom 43% were women.

This higher proportion could be explained in two ways: the fact that a higher percentage of women than men are in the employed sector, where practising certificates are not compulsory; and that the profession is still not the easiest place for women to prosper or continue working after having children.

Of those with practising certificates, 26% of women worked outside private practice, compared to 18% of men.

But things are far from totally rosy for women.

As the Gazette's own survey of the largest firms showed last week, women continue to be heavily under-represented at partnership level (24% of women in the profession were partners as opposed to 52% of men).

This can in part be explained by the fact that the recent influx of women means that many are still at relatively junior levels, but this is not an excuse that will hold water for much longer, if at all any more.

The Society report also found worrying pay disparities for female trainees.

On average across the country, they earned 17,944, compared to 18,807 for male trainees, although curiously there are some regions - including eastern England and the north-west - where the pay disparity was in the opposite direction.

Nonetheless, the barriers some women still face has not led to them striking out on their own.

Proportionally, there were twice as many male sole practitioners as female.

On the basis of optional information provided to the Society, the report estimates that 6.6% of solicitors with practising certificates came from ethnic minorities, up from 6.1% a year before.

The figure was 5.5% the year before that.

Most ethnic minority solicitors are women.

Some 53% of ethnic minority solicitors were based in London (compared with 36% of solicitors as a whole).

Nonetheless, in many areas of England and Wales, there was a rough match between the percentage of ethnic minority solicitors and the wider percentage of ethnic minority population.

London and the west midlands were the main exceptions to this.

However, as with women, there is strong evidence that many would-be lawyers from ethnic minorities are coming through the ranks.

Last year, more than one-fifth of law undergraduates came from ethnic minorities, as did around 17% of trainees and newly qualified solicitors.

More generally in the profession, there were a total of 9,251 registered private practice partnerships, of which 8,306 were considered active (by the criterion of having gross fees of at least 15,000).

A quarter of active firms were in London, with a further 22% elsewhere in the south-east.

There was a high-water mark of 8,842 active firms in 1997, and the decline has mainly come among smaller firms.

There are almost 300 fewer sole practitioners (3,496 as of last year) and 250 fewer firms of two-to-four partners (3,396).

Despite the massive concentration of wealth, resource and press coverage in the largest firms, the Society recorded just 130 firms of 26 or more partners, 1.5% of all firms and a figure that has only grown slowly in recent years (it was 111 in 1996).

These firms employed 36% of all solicitors in private practice and generated slightly more than half of the profession's entire 10.5 billion income.

The 10.5 billion figure - calculated on the basis of figures supplied by the Solicitors Indemnity Fund and relating to the financial year 1999-2000 - is an increase of 52% in five years.

However, when the rapid growth in the number of solicitors and inflation is stripped out, real gross fees per solicitor rose just 8.3% in the five years to 2000.

The report found that over the five years to 2000, the strongest performing firms have been those in the 11-25 partner category, where gross fees per principal (ignoring growth in solicitors and inflation) increased 44% to 308,000.

It was at the 26-plus partner firms, perhaps surprisingly, where growth was the slowest: 24% to 613,000.

A separate study of profitability contained in the report shows that 25% of sole practitioners earned less than 19,000 from operating their practices; however, sole practitioners in the top 25% earned more than 75,000.

Median profits for sole practitioners stood at 40,000, compared to 50,000 per equity partner at firms of two to four partners, 57,000 at firms of five to ten partners, 83,000 at firms of 11-25 partners, and 154,000 at firms of 26-80 partners.

The few firms larger than this were not surveyed.

Clearly, outside legal aid work at least, there is sufficient financial incentive to keep plenty of students aspiring to join the profession.

Still, it would appear that more people doing a law degree see it as the route to other fields, rather than a legal career.

Some 9,324 students graduated in law in 2000, a 9% rise in five years (52% of women received firsts or 2:1s, compared to 46.5% of men).

However, 3,599 of solicitors admitted last year had law degrees, 58% of the total.

A decade earlier, 65% of newly qualifieds had law degrees.

The percentage of solicitors without law degrees jumped from 10% to 21% in the same period.

The rest are made up of transfers from other countries and other branches of the legal profession.

Three-quarters (4,990) of the 6,596 students who sat the legal practice course examination last year passed.

How many resat and passed is not recorded, but firms will hope it is many, for there were 5,162 training contracts registered, a slight drop on the year before.

The average age of those who make it through to admission should also give hope to those who fear that mature students have problems entering the profession.

The typical young solicitor who has done a law degree, LPC and training contract without a break should qualify at around 24 years old.

Nonetheless, the average age of entrants to the profession (ignoring those transferring into it, who tend to be older) is 28.7.

There is little sign in these figures that the profession's growth is slowing.

By 2055, if it continues to expand at around 50% a decade as it has since the 1970s, there will be a million solicitors.

But as these things go, the UK is not currently over-lawyered.

The statistical report says there was one private practice solicitor per 770 head of population as of July 2001, although regional variations put the ratio, at its thinnest, at 1:1,576 in the north-east.

But a study by the New Zealand Law Society in 1998 shows that, as competition goes, this is not too bad at all.

It found that the global lawyer/population ratio was 1:2,370, and the leading countries in the Commonwealth - Canada (1:462), New Zealand (1:504) and Australia (1:550) - all had more than England and Wales, which even lagged behind Scotland (1:588).

Even if barristers and legal executives were added, the England and Wales ratio would probably fall to only around 1:600.

And if international practice is your thing, there are places to hang your shingle that are clearly crying out for lawyers, such as Japan (1:1,319), South Africa (1:3,262) and France (a lawless or law-abiding jurisdiction, depending on your view, with a ratio of 1:4,200).

But before practitioners start writing angry letters to the Daily Mail to put the record straight, there is one salient fact for Londoners, at least, to bear in mind.

Back in 1998, the US - which by common consent has more lawyers than you can sensibly shake a stick at - had an average of one for every 274 lucky citizens.

London, as of 2001, had one solicitor for every 254 people.

Or put another way, about one for every packed tube carriage.