The total number of lawyers in the United States has seen a steady increase over the last few years. In 2024, there were approximately 1.32 million active lawyers. This total was slightly lower when compared to the previous year, and not much above the 2015 figure of 1.3 million. Lawyers in the U.S. Unlike many other common law countries, the United States does not differentiate between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not. For example, in the United Kingdom the former are titled barristers and the latter solicitors. In the United States, however, terms such as lawyer and attorney can refer to either profession. Oversupply in the U.S. legal industry Despite continuous growth of the U.S. legal services market since the great recession, there is an oversupply of lawyers relative to the number of jobs. An overproduction of law graduates is one cause of this oversupply; consequently the number of law graduates shrunk in recent years. Increasing automation is another cause, with around half of law firms admitting to replacing human resources with technology in the last two years.

The graph illustrates the number of lawyers in the United States from 1990 to 2024. The x-axis represents the years, spanning from 1990 to 2024, while the y-axis indicates the annual number of lawyers. Over this 35-year period, the number of lawyers increases from 755,700 in 1990 to 1,322,649 in 2024. The data ranges from a low of 755,700 lawyers in 1990 to a high of 1,322,649 in 2024. Notable points include steady growth each decade, a slight decline from 1,352,070 in 2019 to 1,327,740 in 2020, and subsequent stabilization in the following years. The data shows a consistent upward trend in the number of lawyers, despite minor fluctuations in recent years. This information is presented in a line graph format, effectively highlighting the long-term growth and yearly variations in the legal profession across the United States.

In 2023, approximately 40 percent of lawyers in the United States were women. In 2022, the state with the highest employment in that occupation was California, followed by New York and Florida.

How has the number of lawyers in the U.S. changed over time?

Between 2007 and 2022, there was an overall increase in the number of practicing lawyers in the United States. In 2022, the number of lawyers in the United States was up almost ten percent from what it had been a decade ago. Conversely, the number of law school graduates has steadily declined since 2013. This suggests that although the demand for lawyers has continued to grow in the United States, there have been fewer graduates being produced by law schools in the country.

The U.S. legal services market

The largest segment of the U.S. legal services market in 2022 was spending on outside legal counsel. This segment contributed significantly more to the market than corporate legal departments for companies with over one billion U.S. dollars in revenue. In 2017, the United States held almost half of the global legal market.

As of 2021, the law firm with the highest number of lawyers in the United States (U.S) was Kirkland & Ellis, with 2,374. Latham & Waktins and Morgan, Lewis followed, with 1,876 and 1,552 lawyers employed in the United States respectively.

In 2023, the state with the highest number of lawyers in the Unites States was California with roughly 94,300 lawyers. The state with the second most numerous amount of lawyers was New York, with 7,300 lawyers fewer than California.

The total number of lawyers working at the leading 100 law firms in the United States (U.S.) increased steadily between 2015 and 2020. In 2020, there was a combined total of 105,718 lawyers working at the 100 highest grossing U.S. law firms.

This statistic gives the number of firms in the legal services market in the United States from 2010 to 2018, with a breakdown by enterprise size. In 2018, there were around 264 legal services firms in the United States with more than 500 employees.

In 2023, there were approximately 450,000 law firms in the United States. Between 2018 and 2023, the number of law firms grew by approximately 0.7 percent per year on average.

Expert industry market research on the Personal Injury Lawyers & Attorneys in the US (2005-2030). Make better business decisions, faster with IBISWorld's industry market research reports, statistics, analysis, data, trends and forecasts.

In 2023, the state with the highest number of lawyers in the United States was California, with a figure of approximately 94,300. In the same year, roughly 86,000 lawyers were employed in the state of New York.

This dataset provides information on 59 in Missouri, United States as of March, 2025. It includes details such as email addresses (where publicly available), phone numbers (where publicly available), and geocoded addresses. Explore market trends, identify potential business partners, and gain valuable insights into the industry. Download a complimentary sample of 10 records to see what's included.

Estate lawyers and attorneys are legal practitioners that specialize in providing estate, probate, inheritance and trust law services. Over the five years to 2023, a growing senior population and overall economic growth proved beneficial to estate lawyers. The outbreak of COVID-19 also helped raise demand for industry services. As a result, revenue is estimated to have increased at a CAGR of 1.4% to $17.8 billion. In 2023, revenue is estimated to increase 1.7%. Profit, which is high in this industry, has remained stable over the past few years.As baby boomers age and eventually pass away, they will leave their estates to their beneficiaries. This shift is expected to constitute the largest generational transfer of wealth in history. The number of adults aged 65 and older has grown over the past five years, and as a result, demand for estate lawyers, attorneys and those specializing in elder law has grown. The growing senior population has also driven more estate attorneys to diversify their practices to provide elder law services. Elder law services include a wide range of legal matters that affect older people or those with disabilities, such as legal issues related to healthcare, long-term care planning, retirement, estate planning, wills, trusts, taxes and protection against elder abuse. Amid the pandemic, increased mortality has driven individuals to seek out lawyers for estate planning, estate administration, probate and power of attorney services.Revenue is anticipated to continue its growth trajectory at a CAGR of 1.2% to $18.9 billion over the five years to 2026. The industry is expected to continue to experience strong demand for services from an aging baby boomer population. Growth in per capita disposable income as the economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic is also anticipated to support demand for legal services, because individuals are more likely to engage in estate planning during periods of economic growth and low unemployment. More millennials will enter peak earning years during the outlook, making them more likely to engage estate planning services.

Expert industry market research on the Business Lawyers & Attorneys in the US (2005-2030). Make better business decisions, faster with IBISWorld's industry market research reports, statistics, analysis, data, trends and forecasts.

The American Bar Association’s annual Survey on Lawyer Discipline (SOLD) reports complaints and charges regarding lawyer misconduct, the caseload per disciplinary attorney, and each state’s budget for attorney discipline. From these reports, we develop five measures of attorney discipline: 1. COMPLAINTS – the percent of attorneys in the state who receive complaints from the public. 2. CHARGED – the percent of attorneys that are charged with some form of misconduct during the year; 3. CHARGED/ COMPLAINTS – the percent of the attorneys receiving COMPLAINTS that are eventually CHARGED with malpractice; 4. BUDGET (in dollars) – the state’s annual budget for implementing attorney discipline relative to the number of attorneys; and 5. CASELOAD – the number of AD cases per state disciplinary attorney per year.

In our study "Attorney Discipline, the Quality of Legal Systems and Economic Growth within the United States" we use these measures to examine the quality of legal systems within the United States and the relation between this quality and state economic growth. The panel data set, included here, contains the values of the 5 attorney discipline measures for each state from 2000-2017. We use these data in our study.

This dataset is about book subjects and is filtered where the book subject is Lawyers-United States-Biography, featuring 6 columns including average publication date, book subject, earliest publication date, latest publication date, and number of authors. The preview is ordered by number of books (descending).

This dataset provides information on 36 in Massachusetts, United States as of March, 2025. It includes details such as email addresses (where publicly available), phone numbers (where publicly available), and geocoded addresses. Explore market trends, identify potential business partners, and gain valuable insights into the industry. Download a complimentary sample of 10 records to see what's included.

The number of law graduates in the United States steadily declined between 2013 and 2019. Between 2020 and 2022 there was a slight increase in the number of graduates, however this number fell again in 2023. The share of unemployed law graduates in the United States followed approximately the same trend: the percentage of law students who did not find a job after graduating in 2019 was roughly half the share recorded in 2013, before increasing again in 2020, and falling in the following years.

Career opportunities

Law school graduates can undertake many career paths. Legal occupations can be primarily distinguished between lawyers, judges, and judicial workers on one hand, and legal support workers, such as paralegals and legal assistants, on the other. In 2023, the outright majority of professionals employed in legal occupations in the United States were lawyers. According to the same study, lawyers were also the highest-paid workers in the sector, followed by judges and magistrates.

Leading law firms The United States are home to some of the most renowned law firms in the world. In 2022, Wachtell was the leading law firms in the country in terms of revenue per lawyer, as Kirkland & Ellis generated the highest gross revenue. Baker Mckenzie was the company in the United States with the highest number of lawyers employed. In fact, the multinational firm headquartered in Chicago employed roughly 500 more lawyers than DLA Piper, who were second in the rankings.

This dataset provides information on 219 in Illinois, United States as of March, 2025. It includes details such as email addresses (where publicly available), phone numbers (where publicly available), and geocoded addresses. Explore market trends, identify potential business partners, and gain valuable insights into the industry. Download a complimentary sample of 10 records to see what's included.

This dataset provides information on 45 in Virginia, United States as of March, 2025. It includes details such as email addresses (where publicly available), phone numbers (where publicly available), and geocoded addresses. Explore market trends, identify potential business partners, and gain valuable insights into the industry. Download a complimentary sample of 10 records to see what's included.

Immigration lawyers and attorneys recently experienced significant turbulence and unprecedented changes. When COVID-19 emerged, the US government implemented policy measures like visa suspensions and travel bans to curb migration and control the virus spread. Consequently, many migrants turned to immigration attorneys for support in navigating these restrictions, causing revenue to surge in 2020. In 2021, robust economic growth resulted in more spending on immigration services by individuals and businesses alike, inflating revenue in that year. The recent spike in inflation in 2022 and 2023 saw a notable decline in demand for the industry’s services as potential clients prioritized essential living expenditures, constraining revenue growth. More recently, providers have benefited from a major surge in immigration in the early 2020s, keeping revenue positive in 2022 and 2023 and producing a major surge in income in 2024. Over the past year, the US government has tightened immigration policies amid public concerns about asylum law abuse and a surge in migrants. In June 2024, former President Biden issued an order to suspend asylum rights for unauthorized individuals at the US-Mexico border when daily encounters exceed 2,500 individuals. This led to a significant drop in monthly migrant encounters and is expected to lead to a slowdown in revenue growth in 2025. Internal competition has mounted due to increased entry into the industry, constraining profit. Overall, revenue for immigration lawyers and attorneys has expanded at a CAGR of 3.3% over the past five years, reaching $9.9 billion in 2025. This includes a 2.2% climb in revenue in that year. Looking forward, the industry’s companies are poised for both challenges and opportunities. Steady economic growth is predicted over the next five years, potentially boosting disposable income, corporate profit and, therefore, revenue growth. However, looming policy changes by the Trump administration could dampen providers' prospects. The resurrection of restrictive policies, such as the "Remain in Mexico" rule, aims to limit migration, possibly slowing providers’ growth. Other policies, such as expanding the 287(g) program and attempting to end birthright citizenship, have sparked controversy and criticism. These policies may result in increased demand for immigration lawyers as pro-immigration groups seek to challenge them, potentially raising revenue for lawyers specializing in court activities. Overall, revenue for immigration lawyers and attorneys is forecast to inch upward at a CAGR of 1.7% over the next five years, reaching $10.8 billion in 2030.