A study by the Law Society of New Zealand has found that the average legal practitioner has 18 years of experience.

The Law Society says there were 11,434 New Zealand-based lawyers with a current practising certificate at 8 January 2013. A further 455 lawyers with Law Society-issued practising certificates are working overseas.

Lawyers in sole practice are most experienced according to the findings. There are 1087 sole practitioners (9.5 percent of all lawyers), who on average have 29.3 years of experience. Lawyers who are partners or directors of law firms make up 21.9 percent of all lawyers and have spent an average of 25.3 years in practice.

The profession also has 124 practising lawyers who were admitted to the bar over 50 years ago. All but one of these is male. This is in stark contrast to new lawyers who are predominantly female.  At present 55.0 percent of New Zealand-based lawyers are male. The average male lawyer has been in practice for 22.2 years while the average female lawyer has been in practice for 12.9 years.More than 60 percent of lawyers admitted to the bar each year are female and of the 2283 lawyers who have been in practice for five years or less, 60.2 percent are female.

On a geographical basis, lawyers practising in Wanganui have spent the longest average time in practice. Wanganui’s 48 lawyers have spent an average of 25.5 years in practice, followed by Taupo (23.5 years) and Napier 22.7 years. In contrast, Auckland’s 4912 lawyers (43 percent of all New Zealand lawyers) have an average of 17.2 years in practice while in the country’s capital it’s 16.3 years.

Related stories:
NZ: Lawyer numbers increase as do complaints 1 November 2012
 

In-house report reveals shape of the industry 23 October 2012