By the end of 2022, China had more than 651,600 practicing lawyers and more than 38,600 law firms.
On 14 June 2023, China’s Ministry of Justice published the “Statistical Analysis of the Work of Lawyers and Grassroots Legal Services in 2022” (2022年度律师、基层法律服务工作统计分析).
In terms of categories of lawyers:
- Full-time lawyers: over 504,700, accounting for 77.46 %;
- Part-time lawyers: over 14,300, accounting for 2.19 %;
- Government-employed lawyers: over 95,900, accounting for 14.73 %;
- In-house lawyers: over 29,900, accounting for 4.6 %;
- Military lawyers: over 1,500, accounting for 0.23 %.
In terms of the age structure of lawyers:
- Lawyers under 30: over 107,900, accounting for 16.56 %;
- Lawyers aged 30 (inclusive) to 50: over 419,500, accounting for 64.39 %;
- Lawyers aged 50 (inclusive) to 65: over 106,300, accounting for 16.32 %;
- Lawyers aged 65 (inclusive) and over: over 17,700, accounting for 2.73 %.
In terms of the entity types of law firms:
- Partnership firms: over 28,200, accounting for 73.16 %;
- State-owned firms: 604, accounting for 1.56 %;
- Individual firms: 9,777, accounting for 25.28 %.
In terms of law firm sizes:
- Law firms with ten lawyers or fewer: over 25,300, accounting for 65.5 %;
- Law firms with 11 to 20 (inclusive) lawyers: 8,023, accounting for 20.74 %;
- Law firms with 21 to 50 (inclusive) lawyers: 4,037, accounting for 10.44 %;
- Law firms with 51 to 100 (inclusive) lawyers: 784, accounting for 2.03 %;
- Law firms with over 100 lawyers: 500, accounting for 1.29 %.
Nationwide, lawyers handled more than 12.74 million legal affairs, including over 8.24 million litigation cases, and over 1.416 million non-litigation legal affairs.
By the end of 2022, 217 law firms from 22 countries and regions had established 282 representative offices in mainland China.
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
