Gender differences show in legal specialisations

Lawyers specialising in family law and resource management law are more likely to be female, according to information from the New Zealand Law Society.

On the other hand, male lawyers are more likely to specialise in property, company and commercial law and civil litigation.

From data collected by the Law Society, 70.6% of lawyers who say they spend over half their time working in family law are women. Overall, 44% of lawyers who currently practise in New Zealand are women. Of lawyers who spend most of their time practising resource management law, 51.4% are women.

The information on areas of practice and time spent in each area is provided voluntarily to the Law Society with all practising certificate applications and renewals. At 1 September 2011 over 56% of New Zealand lawyers stated that they spent more than half their time working in a particular area of practice.

Of these, 17% said they spent over half their time working in company and commercial law, followed by property law (16%), civil litigation (13%), family law (11%), criminal law (9%), employment law (4%) and resource management law (4%).

In the main areas of specialisation, males comprised 65.7% of lawyers focusing on company and commercial law, 67.5% of property lawyers, 65.3% of civil litigation lawyers, 60.8% of criminal lawyers and 52.1% of employment lawyers.

© New Zealand Law Society 2008