LAWYERS PER CAPITA BY STATE

Many readers find their way to the Law School Tuition Bubble by searching for the “number of attorneys per capita by state,” and discover research I did way back in the summer of 2010. Other searches bring people to the Avery Index, which used the 2000 Census with 2007 Martindale-Hubble attorney listings. We have better data available. In the past, one would have to shell out $45.00 to buy the Lawyer Statistical Report: The Legal Profession in 2000 from the ABA bookstore, which is no longer available except for a five-page excerpt on the ABA’s Market Research page. So, here’s the 2012 update, open source for all.

This page uses the number of attorneys “active and resident” according to the “ABA’s National Lawyer Population by State” count (NLPS) and population figures by state from the U.S. Census Bureau via FRED (Puerto Rico’s is from one year earlier from the World Bank). The NLPS does not tell us the number of inactive or nonresident attorneys, but the Lawyer Statistical Report calculates those at 4.8 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively. To give you a comparison: for the 1.2 million attorneys on the rolls in 2012, between 1970 and 2011 the ABA conferred just over 1.5 million law degrees, though only about 728,200 people were employed as lawyers in 2010.

WARNING: I suspect some people, including university administrators, have used the data on this page to argue that there is an attorney shortage in one state or another. This is very, very, very wrong. There is no general shortage of lawyers anywhere in the United States. If you use these data to argue that, you are deliberately misleading your audience by failing to understand that having a law license and working as an attorney are not the same thing (doubly so for people who just have a law degree). You should be honest with your audience by understanding the entire page as presented. Furthermore, demand for legal services is dependent on the level of economic activity in a region, so it makes sense that sparsely populated states have lower lawyer densities.

This page will be regularly updated.

Number of Active & Resident Lawyers Per Capita

The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are counted as states.

#	STATE	2012 POPULATION	NO. LAWYERS ACTIVE & RESIDENT (2012)	NO. LAWYERS PER 10,000 RESIDENTS (2012)
1	District of Columbia	632,323	51,271	810.84
2	New York	19,570,261	163,798	83.70
3	Massachusetts	6,646,144	42,483	63.92
4	Connecticut	3,590,347	20,842	58.05
5	Illinois	12,875,255	60,069	46.65
6	New Jersey	8,864,590	40,997	46.25
7	Minnesota	5,379,139	23,774	44.20
8	California	38,041,430	159,824	42.01
9	Missouri	6,021,988	24,276	40.31
10	Colorado	5,187,582	20,768	40.03
11	Louisiana	4,601,893	18,327	39.82
12	Rhode Island	1,050,292	4,060	38.66
13	Pennsylvania	12,763,536	48,947	38.35
14	Maryland	5,884,563	22,477	38.20
15	Vermont	626,011	2,270	36.26
16	Puerto Rico	3,706,690	13,282	35.83
17	Florida	19,317,568	66,556	34.45
18	Washington	6,897,012	23,741	34.42
19	Michigan	9,883,360	33,692	34.09
20	Oklahoma	3,814,820	12,978	34.02
21	Alaska	731,449	2,418	33.06
22	Ohio	11,544,225	37,745	32.70
23	Oregon	3,899,353	12,276	31.48
24	Delaware	917,092	2,853	31.11
25	Texas	26,059,203	80,657	30.95
26	Montana	1,005,141	3,008	29.93
27	Hawaii	1,392,313	4,107	29.50
28	Virginia	8,185,867	24,091	29.43
29	Kentucky	4,380,415	12,891	29.43
30	Alabama	4,822,023	14,135	29.31
31	Maine	1,329,192	3,865	29.08
32	Wyoming	576,412	1,668	28.94
33	Georgia	9,919,945	28,520	28.75
34	Kansas	2,885,905	8,156	28.26
35	Nebraska	1,855,525	4,983	26.85
36	Wisconsin	5,726,398	15,364	26.83
37	New Mexico	2,085,538	5,513	26.43
38	Tennessee	6,456,243	16,947	26.25
39	West Virginia	1,855,413	4,854	26.16
40	New Hampshire	1,320,718	3,449	26.11
41	Utah	2,855,287	7,309	25.60
42	Nevada	2,758,931	6,850	24.83
43	Iowa	3,074,186	7,308	23.77
44	Indiana	6,537,334	15,512	23.73
45	Mississippi	2,984,926	6,955	23.30
46	Idaho	1,595,728	3,627	22.73
47	South Dakota	833,354	1,865	22.38
48	North Dakota	699,628	1,546	22.10
49	Arizona	6,553,255	14,471	22.08
50	North Carolina	9,752,073	21,280	21.82
51	South Carolina	4,723,723	9,537	20.19
52	Arkansas	2,949,131	5,928	20.10
	USA AVERAGE	313,914,040	1,244,120	39.63

(Arizona’s lawyer count is from 2011, and Illinois and Puerto Ricos are from 2010, shockingly. Alabama’s lawyer count includes all attorneys.)

Here’s a geographic representation by state, and one by Bureau of Economic Analysis regions.

BEA REGION	2012 POPULATION	# LAWYERS ACTIVE & RESIDENT (2012)	# LAWYERS/10,000 RESIDENTS (2012)
New England	14,562,704	76,969	52.85
Mideast	48,632,365	330,343	67.93
Great Lakes	46,566,572	162,382	34.87
Plains	20,749,725	71,908	34.65
Southeast	79,949,220	230,021	28.77
Southwest	38,512,816	113,619	29.50
Rocky Mountain	11,220,150	36,380	32.42
Far West	53,720,488	209,216	38.95
USA REGIONS	313,914,040	1,244,120	39.63

There’s probably a correlation between active and resident status and bar authorities requiring high fees, CLE requirements, and mandatory pro bono work that might be worth investigating in the future. The fact that Massachusetts lost five percent of its lawyers over the course of 2010 strongly suggests that many attorneys changed their status due to an inability to afford bar fees and CLEs. The ABA Market Research Department should probably start counting inactive attorneys. We may learn much.

Number of Employed Lawyers Per Capita

Next, we have the number of employed lawyers per capita based on data supplied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and state government labor departments. The cumulative state total differs from the BLS’s so I included that separately along with the same information by BEA region.

#	STATE/REGION	2010 POPULATION	NO. EMPLOYED LAWYERS (2010)	NO. EMPLOYED LAWYERS PER 10,000 RESIDENTS (2010)
1	District of Columbia	610,589	41,669	694.51
2	Delaware	891,464	3,037	34.35
3	New York	19,577,730	66,695	34.16
4	Vermont	622,433	1,997	32.14
5	Massachusetts	6,631,280	21,114	32.03
6	New Jersey	8,732,811	26,165	30.10
7	Florida	18,678,049	54,091	29.22
8	Colorado	5,095,309	14,158	28.23
9	Connecticut	3,526,937	9,208	26.20
10	Montana	980,152	2,550	26.18
11	Illinois	12,944,410	32,868	25.49
12	Virginia	7,952,119	19,391	24.66
13	Maryland	5,737,274	13,988	24.59
14	Oklahoma	3,724,447	8,866	24.06
15	California	37,266,600	86,700	23.50
16	Minnesota	5,290,447	12,058	22.91
17	Rhode Island	1,056,870	2,401	22.71
18	Pennsylvania	12,632,780	27,953	22.18
19	Maine	1,312,939	2,811	21.36
20	Washington	6,746,199	14,231	21.33
21	Missouri	6,011,741	12,434	20.78
22	Louisiana	4,529,426	9,301	20.72
23	Nevada	2,654,751	5,428	20.57
24	North Dakota	653,778	1,316	20.37
25	Utah	2,830,753	5,398	19.41
26	South Dakota	820,077	1,520	18.75
27	Georgia	9,908,357	18,295	18.64
28	New Hampshire	1,323,531	2,439	18.45
29	Nebraska	1,811,072	3,254	18.13
30	Kansas	2,841,121	5,059	17.96
31	Texas	25,213,445	44,329	17.90
32	Arizona	6,676,627	11,643	17.67
33	Hawaii	1,300,086	2,261	17.55
34	Ohio	11,532,111	20,198	17.51
35	Wisconsin	5,668,519	9,709	17.18
36	Idaho	1,559,796	2,621	16.97
37	West Virginia	1,825,513	3,062	16.81
38	Kentucky	4,339,435	6,860	15.91
39	Arkansas	2,910,236	4,546	15.74
40	Alabama	4,729,656	7,347	15.61
41	New Mexico	2,033,875	3,019	15.04
42	Michigan	9,931,235	14,790	14.86
43	Iowa	3,023,081	4,467	14.85
44	South Carolina	4,596,958	6,703	14.72
45	North Carolina	9,458,888	13,653	14.59
46	Indiana	6,445,295	9,249	14.41
47	Alaska	708,862	993	14.29
48	Wyoming	547,637	757	13.91
49	Oregon	3,855,536	5,049	13.21
50	Mississippi	2,960,467	3,770	12.78
51	Puerto Rico	3,721,978	3,949	10.56
N/A	Tennessee*	6,338,112	8,720	N/A
U.S.A. (STATES)		312,772,794	714,090	22.83
U.S.A. (BLS)		312,772,794	728,200	23.46
Mideast		48,182,648	179,507	37.40
New England		14,473,990	39,970	27.71
Rocky Mountains		11,013,647	25,484	23.47
Far West		52,532,034	114,662	22.05
Southeast*		78,227,216	155,739	19.91
Plains		20,451,317	40,108	19.74
Great Lakes		46,521,570	86,814	18.69
Southwest		37,648,394	67,857	18.31
U.S.A. (REGIONS)		309,050,816	701,421	22.70

* Tennessee employed lawyer data from 2008.

‘Idle’ Attorneys

Finally, to add some value that the Lawyer Statistical Report never would have considered, the difference between lawyers on the rolls and the number of employed lawyers varies significantly between states and regions. This creates data I call “Idle Attorneys”: lawyers who are not employed in the profession. They may be judges, legislators, businesspeople whose careers advanced due to their law degrees; or, they may be people who are unable to find careers as attorneys, are working in areas that don’t require law degrees, are choosing not to work, or are unemployed yet still maintaining their active membership. The correlation coefficient between the number of law schools per capita (omitted) and idle attorneys per capita in each state is 0.74, and in the BEA regions it’s 0.62. Using data from the Law Graduate Oversupply page, the correlation between surplus graduates per capita (omitted) and idle attorneys per capita is 0.80, but in the BEA regions it’s 0.90, though that’s a smaller sample. There isn’t quite enough information to make the causal argument that excess law school enrollments lead to excess lawyers, but it is interesting. Readers should note that the distribution is highly skewed, with a quarter of idle attorneys living in D.C., New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

#	STATE (# ABA LAW SCHOOLS)	# LAWYERS ACTIVE & RESIDENT (2008)	# EMPLOYED LAWYERS (2008)	# IDLE ATTYS	# IDLE ATTYS/10,000 RESIDENTS	PERCENT IDLE
1	Puerto Rico (3)	12,454	4,180	8,274	20.92	66.44%
2	Oregon (3)	11,344	4,980	6,364	16.82	56.10%
3	Massachusetts (7)*	42,501	21,600	20,901	31.94	49.18%
4	Missouri (4)	22,602	11,520	11,082	18.61	49.03%
5	Connecticut (3)	19,013	9,940	9,073	25.90	47.72%
6	Ohio (9)	36,644	19,860	16,784	14.56	45.80%
7	Kentucky (3)	11,876	6,510	5,366	12.51	45.18%
8	Alaska (0)	2,385	1,330	1,055	15.33	44.23%
9	New York (15)	150,542	86,140	64,402	33.08	42.78%
10	Tennessee (3)*	15,199	8,720	6,479	10.38	42.63%
11	Michigan (5)	32,131	19,030	13,101	13.10	40.77%
12	Alabama (3)*	13,231	7,910	5,321	11.38	40.22%
13	Arkansas (2)	5,700	3,430	2,270	7.92	39.82%
14	Texas (9)	73,505	44,680	28,825	11.86	39.22%
15	Wyoming (1)	1,537	940	597	11.20	38.84%
16	Pennsylvania (8)	46,065	28,400	17,665	14.06	38.35%
17	Illinois (9)	61,259	38,080	23,179	18.05	37.84%
18	Iowa (2)	6,959	4,340	2,619	8.75	37.63%
19	Louisiana (4)	16,965	10,770	6,195	13.92	36.52%
20	West Virginia (1)	4,618	2,940	1,678	9.25	36.34%
21	California (20)*	148,399	94,900	53,499	14.63	36.05%
22	Oklahoma (3)	12,357	8,100	4,257	11.68	34.45%
23	Montana (1)	2,844	1,870	974	10.06	34.25%
24	Kansas (2)	7,855	5,210	2,645	9.46	33.67%
25	Nebraska (2)	5,117	3,400	1,717	9.64	33.55%
26	Washington (3)	22,276	14,840	7,436	11.32	33.38%
27	Rhode Island (1)	4,055	2,710	1,345	12.77	33.17%
28	New Mexico (1)	5,267	3,550	1,717	8.64	32.60%
29	Maryland (2)	20,996	14,300	6,696	11.83	31.89%
30	Minnesota (4)	21,944	15,290	6,654	12.72	30.32%
31	New Hampshire (1)	3,309	2,350	959	7.25	28.98%
32	Indiana (4)	13,564	9,740	3,824	5.99	28.19%
33	Wisconsin (2)	14,448	10,390	4,058	7.21	28.09%
34	Hawaii (1)	4,126	2,970	1,156	8.98	28.02%
35	New Jersey (3)	39,384	28,650	10,734	12.39	27.25%
36	South Carolina (2)	8,961	6,640	2,321	5.15	25.90%
37	Colorado (2)	18,894	14,090	4,804	9.73	25.43%
38	North Carolina (7)	18,966	14,310	4,656	5.04	24.55%
39	Georgia (5)	27,227	20,900	6,327	6.52	23.24%
40	Maine (1)	3,594	2,800	794	6.02	22.09%
41	Mississippi (2)	6,723	5,260	1,463	4.98	21.76%
42	Nevada (1)	6,105	4,840	1,265	4.84	20.72%
43	Idaho (1)	3,330	2,710	620	4.06	18.62%
44	Florida (11)	59,953	52,980	6,973	3.78	11.63%
45	District of Columbia (6)	46,689	42,410	4,279	72.52	9.16%
46	North Dakota (1)	1,345	1,240	105	1.64	7.81%
47	Arizona (3)	12,793	11,880	913	1.40	7.14%
48	Virginia (8)	21,183	19,780	1,403	1.80	6.62%
49	Vermont (1)	2,183	2,070	113	1.82	5.18%
50	Utah (2)	6,215	7,080	-865	-3.17	-13.92%
51	Delaware (1)	2,526	2,900	-374	-4.27	-14.81%
N/A	South Dakota (1)	1,761	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
	STATES AVERAGE	1,160,919	765,460	395,459	12.83	34.06%
	USA (BLS) (199)	1,160,919	759,200	401,719	13.03	34.60%

Here’s a chart sorted by the number of idle attorneys per capita.

And here’s a map of idle attorneys per capita by BEA region.

BEA REGION (# ABA LAW SCHOOLS)	# LAWYERS ACTIVE & RESIDENT (2008)	# EMPLOYED LAWYERS (2008)	# IDLE ATTORNEYS	# IDLE ATTYS/10,000 RESIDENTS	PERCENT IDLE
New England (14)	74,655	41,470	33,185	23.11	44.45%
Mideast (35)	306,202	202,800	103,402	21.62	33.77%
Great Lakes (29)	158,046	97,100	60,946	13.14	38.56%
Plains (16)	67,583	41,000	26,583	13.16	39.33%
Southeast (51)	210,602	160,150	50,452	6.56	23.96%
Southwest (16)	103,922	68,210	35,712	9.80	34.36%
Rocky Mountain (7)	32,820	26,690	6,130	5.73	18.68%
Far West (28)	194,635	123,860	70,775	13.74	36.36%
USA REGIONS (196)	1,148,465	761,280	387,185	12.72	33.71%
USA (BLS) (199)	1,160,919	759,200	401,719	13.03	34.06%

Fin.