Solicitors in Wales are regulated by the SRA and are represented by The Law Society of England and Wales, a professional association which provides support to practising and training solicitors, and acts as a collective voice on behalf of the profession. b) Barristers As of June 2023, there are 360 barristers registered as working in Wales, up from about 325 in June 2019. 21 Welsh barristers, 53.6% of which are male and 46.4% female, are predominantly located in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and a few other locations in south and west Wales (including Carmarthen, Neath, Port Talbot and Bridgend): there appear to be no barristers located in mid Wales and only 8 in north Wales. 22 Of the nine chambers in Wales, five are in Cardiff (9 Park Place, 30 Park Place, Apex Chambers, Civitas Law, Temple Court Chambers), three in Swansea (Iscoed Chambers, Angel Chambers, Pendragon Chambers) and one in Newport (Cathedral Chambers). The main areas of practice are crime (131 barristers, or 36.4%), family (125, 34.7%), public law (24, 6.7%) and personal injury (15, 4.2%). 23 These data mirror earlier findings. 24 The ratio 25 of barristers to people living in Wales, in 2021, was 1:8,974, which appears in line with the 1:8,294 ratio in England, excluding London. 26 However, the comparison is misleading, as mid Wales has no access to local barristers and north Wales has an effective ratio of 1:85,875. 27 The low number of barristers in north Wales could in part be due to Chester and Wales sharing a legal circuit until 2006 and a large number of barristers choosing to be based in Chester for convenience in order to practise in both north Wales and north-west England. Barristers are regulated by the Bar Standards Board and the representative body for barristers in England and Wales is the General Council of the Bar (known as the Bar Council). The Legal Services Board is an independent body sits above the SRA, Bar Council and other regulatory bodies of legal professionals, and oversees the regulation of all those providing legal services in England and Wales.
21 The Bar Council, “Demographics Dashboard”, available at www.barcouncil.org.uk/policy- representation/dashboards/demographics-dashboard.html.
22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Jomati report (n 3), 18.
25 This ratio has been calculated using (i) for the number of barristers (346 in Wales, 16,093 in England including London, 5756 in England excluding London), the Bar Council statistics for June 2021 (n 21), (ii) for the population data, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) population estimated for mid-2021 (n 9), (iii) for the population data for Greater London (8,796,628), the ONS data for mid-2021 as re-elaborated by the Greater London Authority, available at https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/londons-population. 26 Including Greater London, the ratio in England was 1:3513, as of mid-2021. 27 Population data from Office for National Statistics, “Population and household estimates, Wales: Census 2021” (28 June 2022), available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationandh ouseholdestimateswales/census2021. The population for North Wales was recorded as 687,000 as of 2021.
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