Law Industry: Industry Facts
- There are three different legal systems in the UK. Northern Ireland and Scotland have separate systems from England and Wales. These differences give rise to different training and employment areas.
- The Scottish Parliament is located in the Holyrood area of the capital Edinburgh. The Parliament, which is informally referred to as "Holyrood" is a democratically elected body comprised of 129 members who are known as Members of the Scottish Parliament or MSPs.
- Unlike the rest of the UK there isn't the equivalent of a conversion course for non-law graduates wishing to train in Scotland, however there are a number of accelerated Scottish law degrees.
- Legal professionals work in the court system, firms of solicitors, barristers' chambers (advocates' stables in Scotland ), private companies and central and local government. Firms of solicitors are the biggest employers of solicitors.
- Solicitors in Scotland: there are currently 11,250, 59% being male 41% being female.
- An increasing number of women are entering law and by 2011 it is estimated that there will be more female solicitors than male.
- The Law Industry is made up of people from a range of backgrounds which broadly reflects the make up of Scotland population and it is far from having a strong 'old boys network', fewer than 6% of solicitors' fathers worked in the legal profession.
- More than 1/3 of people employed in the law industry are under the age of 35.
- The UK legal services market generated revenues of £14.3 billion in 2005, an increase of 3.8% over 2004.
- The UK accounts for 21.6% of the European market, making it the most lucrative individual country market in the region.
- Traineeships in Scotland are offered by all sizes of firms (about a third being offered by fewer than 20 city firms); local authorities and bodies including the Government Legal Service for Scotland (GLSS); the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service; and the Scottish Executive;.
- There were over 260,000 people employed in UK legal services in 2006.
- Exports generated by UK law firms totalled £2.2 bn in 2005 more than three times that of 1995.
- Legal services contributed £14.9bn or 1.4 percent to the UK 's GDP in 2004.
