The number of lawyers in the Netherlands has soared 32% over the past 18 years and the 19,000^th law graduate registered with the bar at the end of August.

In the past 18 months alone, nearly 800 young men and women completed their university education and registered with the Orde van Advocaten, the Financieele Dagblad said on Thursday.

Despite the growth in the number of lawyers, the Netherlands still trails the European average per head of the population. There are 102 lawyers for every 100,000 people in the Netherlands, compared with 163 in Belgium, 199 in Germany and 270 in the UK, the FD said.

The growth in the Netherlands is mainly down to the corporate sector, and the number of legal aid and social lawyers continues to fall. In 2023 there were just under 6,000 legal aid lawyers in the Netherlands, down nearly 1,000 on three years ago.

Other business service professions are not growing nearly as quickly, the FD said, and the number of notaries actually fell by 3%. The number of registered accountants has risen 7% to 8778 since 2006.