The number of Chinese lawyers in 2022 appears in the “2022 Annual Report of the Ministry of Justice on Building a Rule of Law Government” (hereinafter the “Report”, 司法部2022年法治政府建设年度报告) released by China’s Ministry of Justice (MOJ) on 22 Mar. 2023.
The MOJ is the regulator of China’s legal profession. According to the Report:
- The National Platform for Disclosure of Integrity of Lawyer Practice operated by the MOJ displays the information of 510,000 lawyers in private practice and 38,000 law firms.
- Government lawyers have been appointed in 33,000 government departments nationwide, and the number of government lawyers has reached 94,000.
Accordingly, by the end of 2022, there are 510,000 Chinese lawyers in private practice and 94,000 government lawyers in China. However, the Report did not disclose the number of corporate lawyers.
In China, lawyers licensed to practice law are divided into lawyers (i.e., lawyers in private practice), government lawyers (governmental in-house lawyers), and corporate lawyers (corporate in-house lawyers).
Cover Photo by hey emmby on Unsplash
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
