TNAG-1449-FCO40-1953-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 106

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My own judgment

(currently 277 in private practice compared with 93 in 1976) and solicitors (currently, 1,518 in private practice compared with 374 in 1976).

which some may dispute is that there are still too few practising lawyers in Hong Kong particularly lawyers of experience.

-

and

A crude comparison with other jurisdictions tends to bear this out. The total number of barristers and solicitors in

private practice in Hong Kong is approximately 33 per 100,000 of the population, compared with 50 in Singapore, 90 in the U. K. and 140 in New Zealand. Such raw comparisons cannot, of course, take into account differences in legislation, living standards, the legal systems generally or the propensity and financial ability of citizens of different cultures to engage lawyers. They do, however, serve to demonstrate that the population of Hong Kong does not have available to it the same number of lawyers proportionally as people living under comparable legal systems. The fact that fees for legal services in Hong Kong tend to be higher than in many other legal systems may also be evidence of a

shortage of lawyers to meet the demand - but it may well be that the incomes of other professionals and businessmen here may similarly be higher.

(a)

In answer to the specific points raised by Dr. Lam :-

I would need much more information than is publicly

available to measure the extent of the shortage.

(b) Market forces will tend to prevent a shortage of

lawyers being confined to either the private or public

sector. There is, however, an imbalance in these

sectors as between local lawyers and overseas lawyers,

and I also believe that Hong Kong, as a whole, is still

too heavily dependent upon overseas lawyers for its

solicitors (about 30%), its barristers (about 45%), for

Government services overall (about 65%) and the Bench

(about 75%).

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