In 2011 there were 1.3 million lawyers in India, revealed a right to information (RTI) response by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to Delhi-based advocate Kush Kalra, with an average annual growth rate between 2007 and 2011 of around 4 per cent.

[Click here to see a sortable list of the data]

The detailed statistics, broken down by enrolments in each area with a state bar council over the last five years – 20 in total – show that Uttar Pradesh (UP) is home to the largest number of advocates at 288,297 (2.9 lakh). Over five years until 2011, the number of advocates in UP has grown by an average of 3.7 per cent per year.

The next largest areas are Bihar and Maharashtra & Goa both with around 113,000 lawyers each. In Bihar, the annual average growth rate was only around 2.4 per cent, while in Maharashtra & Goa the profession grew by 5 per cent.

Fastest growers = least competition?

The states with the largest growth rates are the states with smaller lawyer numbers, such as Jharkhand where the number of lawyers grew by 45 per cent to 9,789 in five years.

[Click here to see a sortable list of the data]

The second-fastest growing state was Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) where the number of lawyers increased by 35 per cent to 5,951 in five years.

Interestingly, both are also the most under-lawyered states out of the 20: when comparing the total number of lawyer per state to states’ populations and gross domestic product (GDP) Jharkhand and J&K emerge as the least competitive legal markets.

For every lawyer in Jharkhand and J&K, there are respectively 3,368 and 2,109 non-lawyers in the population. In GDP terms, each lawyer has a potential to tap into $2m of GDP on average.

Streets paved with gold?

In GDP per lawyer terms, Maharashtra and Goa, despite being third-largest in terms of lawyer numbers, remains the most attractive large market in terms of GDP: $1.98m of economy exists for every lawyer in the states. Other lucrative states when comparing the GDP to lawyer numbers are Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal ($1.7m each), followed by Gujarat, Punjab & Haryana and Andhra Pradesh ($1.6m each).

[Click here to see a sortable list of the data]

Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the states with the least economic wealth available per lawyer – only around $420,000 of GDP per lawyer.

In Delhi, the figures suggest $1m of local GDP per lawyer, although that would not realistically reflect work that comes to the Delhi-based Supreme Court from all over India. The national average in the states with bar councils, is around $1.1m of GDP per lawyer.

Busiest streets

Delhi is the most legally concentrated state in India, with every 300th person in the city being a lawyer, and the number of lawyers in Delhi has increased by a 29 per cent in five years.

Punjab & Haryana (391 non-lawyer per lawyer), Madhya Pradesh (517) and Uttar Pradesh (692) and Kerala (770), are next in the list.

In Maharashtra, where the number of lawyers rose by 25 per cent in five years, there are around 1,000 non-lawyer per lawyer.

The national average is 886 non-lawyers per lawyer with 19 per cent growth in lawyer numbers over five years.

In terms of lawyer per capita, West Bengal and Assam and Nagaland, are the least densely populated after Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir (around 1,500 non-lawyers to every lawyer).

Discrepancies

In November 2011, Legally India wrote in Mint that there were “approximately 1.2 million” lawyers in India, citing the number of the BCI website, while the BCI’s figures for 2011 supplied in the RTI and obtained from each state bar council show just under 1.3 million enrolled lawyers in India – although it is understood that some deceased advocates’ names may continue being rolls at times.

However, the BCI figure is 400,000 lower than 1.7 million, which BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told the New York Times in an interview in January as the total numbers of lawyers.

Mishra later told Legally India that 1.7 million was an approximate but correct figure, although he had no comment on the lower number supplied in the RTI.

Mishra did not return any other calls or messages for comment after Legally India sent him a copy of the RTI reply by email two weeks ago.

Number of lawyers in India: The data [click here for a sortable list of the all data]

Area	Total Advocates	Advocates enrolled in last 5 years	5 year growth %	Growth rate % (5 year-on-year average)	State GDP ($bn)	GDP / lawyer ($)	State population (m)	Non-lawyers per lawyer	Data as at
Uttar Pradesh	288297	51335	17.8	3.6	122.9	426,366	200	692	29/08/2011
Bihar	113298	13394	11.8	2.4	47.7	420,749	104	916	31/08/2011
Maharashtra & Goa	112706	28547	25.3	5.1	222.8	1,976,470	114	1,010	05/03/2011
Andhra Pradesh	80225	12922	16.1	3.2	124.8	1,555,126	85	1,055	31/07/2011
Karnataka	74032	15615	21.1	4.2	84.6	1,143,289	61	826	05/03/2011
Tamil Nadu	67000	15924	23.8	4.8	115.5	1,723,284	72	1,077	31/08/2011
Punjab & Haryana	64826	16831	26.0	5.2	103.4	1,595,039	25	391	31/07/2011
Madhya Pradesh	64562	15704	24.3	4.9	52.7	816,579	33	517	21/08/2011
Gujarat	64261	7071	11.0	2.2	105.4	1,640,186	60	940	05/03/2011
Rajasthan	63370	15454	24.4	4.9	67.2	1,060,439	69	1,083	05/03/2011
West Bengal	59535	N/a			100.0	1,679,180	91	1,534	28/10/2010
Delhi	54258	15709	29.0	5.8	57.0	1,050,536	17	309	19/08/2011
Orissa	44625	5831	13.1	2.6	41.1	921,681	42	940	31/08/2011
Kerala	43339	5656	13.1	2.6	59.4	1,370,359	33	770	31/07/2011
Assam, Nagaland, etc	23077	7074	30.7	6.1	23.2	1,004,030	33	1,436	05/03/2011
Chhatisgarh	22940	4409	19.2	3.8	24.6	1,072,363	26	1,113	05/03/2011
Jharkhand	9789	4378	44.7	8.9	21.7	2,216,774	33	3,368	31/07/2011
Uttarakhand	9277	2821	30.4	6.1	15.8	1,703,137	10	1,091	31/08/2011
Himachal Pradesh	7921	1770	22.3	4.5	11.4	1,439,212	7	866	31/07/2011
Jammu & Kashsmir	5951	2080	35.0	7.0	12.1	2,028,231	13	2,109	14/11/2011
TOTAL	1273289	242525	19.0	3.8	1413.2	1,109,850	1,128	886

Note: states’ population and GDP figures via Wikipedia