LAWYERS eh. Who needs ‘em?
Well, quite a lot of people by the looks of things. There are 127,109 of them in England and Wales, including 1,929 foreign lawyers, and that doesn’t include all the lawyers like yours truly who are not officially ‘practising’. (Don’t ask what that means – major religions have been mulling that one over for years!)
In London alone, employment in legal services is growing faster than any other financial or professional service. TheCityUK, a lobby group, says legal services employees in London rose in the first half of 2012 by 3.3% to 118,700. This is a 24% jump on the five-year low of 95,900 in 2010.
Insurance employment has fallen by 2.3% since the end of 2011 and the number of banking jobs by 1.6%. Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK, said: ‘The financial and professional services sector is critical to the UK economy and London is the number one financial centre in the world. However, we cannot afford to be complacent. The job market is still sluggish and London is facing competition from other financial centres, including those in Asia and America. The largest sector is accounting and management consulting, which employ 191,600 people in London. Next are banking (143,800), legal services (118,700), insurance (70,700) and fund management (22,000). Auxiliary and other financial services sectors employ 119,600 people.
How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
How many can you afford?
