The total number of lawyers in the United States has seen a steady increase over the last few years. In 2024, there were approximately **** million active lawyers. This total was slightly lower when compared to the previous year, and not much above the 2015 figure of *** 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.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Corporate Law Firms industry in the US

In 2024, there were approximately 463,600 law firms in the United States. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of law firms grew by approximately 1.8 percent per year on average.

In 2023, approximately ** 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 *** 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 *********** U.S. dollars in revenue. In 2017, the United States held almost half of the global legal market.

The graph displays the number of law firms operating in the United States from 2006 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, starting at 2006 and ending at 2025, while the y-axis shows the total number of registered law firm businesses each year. The number of firms ranges from a low of 401,100 in 2008 to a high of 418,181 in 2024. Despite minor dips in some years, such as 2008 and 2022, the overall trend shows steady growth in the legal industry over the two-decade span. The data highlights a resilient and expanding market for legal services in the U.S.

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

Number of Businesses statistics on the Estate Lawyers & Attorneys industry in the US

Number of Businesses statistics on the Immigration Lawyers & Attorneys industry in the US

Market Size statistics on the Personal Injury Lawyers & Attorneys industry in the US

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

The 2014 Survey of State Attorneys General (SAG) collected information on jurisdiction, sources and circumstances of case referrals, and the participation of attorneys general offices in federal or state white-collar crime task forces in 2014. White-collar crime was defined by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) as: "any violation of law committed through non-violent means, involving lies, omissions, deceit, misrepresentation, or violation of a position of trust, by an individual or organization for personal or organizational benefit." SAG sought to analyze how attorneys general offices as an organization in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories respond to white-collar offenses in their jurisdiction. BJS asked respondents to focus on the following criminal and civil offenses: bank fraud, consumer fraud, insurance fraud, medical fraud, securities fraud, tax fraud, environmental offenses, false claims and statements, illegal payments to governmental officials (giving or receiving), unfair trade practices, and workplace-related offenses (e.g., unsafe working conditions). Variables included whether or not offices handled criminal or civil cases in the above categories, estimated number of cases in each category, and what types of criminal or civil sanctions were imposed on white-collar offenders. Researchers also assessed collaboration with partners outside of state attorneys offices, whether cases were referred for federal or local prosecution, and what circumstances lead to referring cases to state regulatory agencies. The extent to which state attorneys offices maintain white-collar crime data was also recorded.

UniCourt provides legal data on law firms that’s been normalized by our AI and enriched with other public data sets to connect real-world law firms to their attorneys and clients, judges they’ve faced and types of litigation they’ve handled across practice areas and state and federal (PACER) courts.

AI Normalized Law Firms

• UniCourt’s AI locates and gathers variations of law firm names and spelling errors contained in court data and combines them with bar data, business data, and judge data to connect real-world law firms to their litigation. • Avoid bad data caused by frequent law firm name changes due to firm mergers, named partners leaving, and firms dissolving, leading to lost business and bad analytics. • UniCourt’s unique normalized IDs for law firms let you quickly search for and download all of the litigation involving the specific firms you’re interested in. • Uncover the associations and relationships between law firms, their lawyers, their clients, judges, and their top practice areas across different jurisdictions.

Using APIs to Dig Deeper

• See a full list of all of the businesses and individuals a law firm has represented as clients in litigation. • Easily vet the bench strength of law firms by looking at the volume and specific types of cases their lawyers have handled. • Drill down into a law firm’s experience to confirm which judges they’ve appeared before in court. • Identify which law firms and lawyers a particular firm has faced as opposing counsel, and the judgments they obtained.

Bulk Access to Law Firm Data

• UniCourt’s Law Firm Data API provides you with structured, cleaned, and organized legal data that you can easily connect to your case management systems, CRM, and other internal applications. • Get bulk access to law firm Secretary of State registration data and the names, emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses for all of a firm’s lawyers. • Use our APIs to create tailored legal marketing campaigns for law firms and their attorneys with the exact practice area expertise and the right geographic coverage you want to target. • Power your case research, business intelligence, and analytics with bulk access to litigation data for all the court cases a firm has handled and set up automated data feeds to find new cases they’re involved in.

This statistic shows the number of law firms in the legal services market in the United States in 2018, broken down by enterprise size. In that year, around 205 law firms in the United States had more than 500 employees.

Comprehensive dataset of 9,774 Civil law attorneys in United States as of August, 2025. Includes verified contact information (email, phone), geocoded addresses, customer ratings, reviews, business categories, and operational details. Perfect for market research, lead generation, competitive analysis, and business intelligence. Download a complimentary sample to evaluate data quality and completeness.

Comprehensive dataset containing 6,302 verified Tax attorney businesses in United States with complete contact information, ratings, reviews, and location data.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Bankruptcy Lawyers & Attorneys industry in the US

Early in his tenure at the Law Department, Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo initiated the Public Service Program - a private/public partnership with the City's prominent law firms, where firms either lend their attorneys to the Law Department for a finite period of time or agree to take on City cases in-house. The Program benefits both the City and the law firms. The City receives the assistance of an incredibly well-trained and talented group of attorneys while the attorneys receive the kind of hands-on, in-court litigation experience that is often hard to come by at the best private law firms. While participation in the Program will not lead to offers of permanent employment at the Law Department, it will enable the volunteers to keep their skills fresh while serving the public. Trial Attorney Volunteers: A number of firms lend mid-level litigation associates to the Law Department for a period of four to six months to work full-time in our Tort Division trial units. These attorneys conduct back-to-back civil trials, selecting juries, examining and cross-examining witnesses and presenting opening statements and closing arguments. Law Firm Volunteers: Other firms have chosen to take entire matters in-house, giving their attorneys the chance to participate in court conferences, settlement negotiations, depositions, and, ultimately, trials. Deposition Program: Firms also lend associates to the Law Department either to conduct a series of depositions in an individual case or to spend two to three weeks in our offices conducting back-to-back depositions in a variety of cases.

A consistent flow of legal cases, heightened travel and the continued proliferation of vehicle drivers created a range of revenue streams for personal injury lawyers and attorneys. Individual customers drove considerable interest in injury attorneys, as the rate of motor vehicle cases and overall drivers rose over the past five years. There were 237.7 million individual drivers in 2023 according to the Federal Highway Administration, expanding lawyers’ influence within the automobile accident stream. The industry also benefited from continued inclines in medical malpractice cases, buoyed by strong 3.1% growth in the number of adults aged 65 and older over the past five years. Service expansion and diversification has provided smaller law firms with greater ability to run more generalized practices spanning automobile accident cases and workplace injury cases, while expanding their array of clients. Overall, revenue grew at a CAGR of 2.5% to an estimated $61.7 billion, including an estimated 0.7% boost in 2025 alone. Personal injury lawyers benefited from higher travel volumes, which generated greater opportunity for legal cases. Individual customers were able to travel more frequently following a period of high inflation in 2022, enabling greater volume within maritime channels like cruises and air channels like airplanes. Marine injury cases inclined from 1,042 individual cases filed in 2023 to 1,167 in 2024 per the United States Courts, generating a growing revenue stream for law firms. However, growing competition from digital alternatives and the continued effects of elevated interest rates on younger clients curtailed profit. Although the average profit is high, most firms are small and handle few cases, so even the loss of one or two cases could be highly detrimental to their bottom line. Moving forward, personal injury lawyers are poised to benefit from a multitude of favorable economic trends and a steadily rising retiree population. Despite the rise in safe driving technology, distractions on the road will continue to result in reckless driving, which will generate higher automobile accident cases. The aging population will also drive demand for malpractice cases, as more elderly people will seek more frequent medical care that will elevate interest in specialized injury attorneys. Finally, the expansion of digital technology, such as AI, will allow law firms to reduce overhead expenses and service a larger array of cases. Revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 1.2% to an estimated $65.6 billion over the next five years.

The total number of equity partners at the leading 100 law firms in the United States (U.S.) increased overall between 2016 and 2020. In 2020, there was a combined total of 21,258 equity partners working at the 100 highest grossing U.S. law firms.