56,420 lawyers under 40 and almost three in ten not practising: what conditions keep young lawyers in the profession
Marking Young Lawyers' Day, an analysis puts figures and faces to the generational handover: predictable access, mentoring and a paid court-duty scheme.
31 October marked Young Lawyers' Day, and the figures handled by Hans A. Boeck's analysis in Lawyerpress invite looking beyond the congratulations: Spain has 56,420 bar members under 40, of whom 40,619 practise and 15,801 do not, almost three in ten. 59 per cent are women.
Three scenes that sum up the handover
The analysis gives a face, with imagined names, to three career moments. Clara compares bar admission master's programmes asking above all about placements: who will review her drafts, whether she will work on real matters, whether she can combine it with a job that pays the bills. Pablo shares an office with a colleague and has had to tell a client that his trial has been listed for 2030, four years away. Elena comes home from a court-duty shift, answers clients' messages after hours and opens her bank account to check whether payments will arrive on time.
The three scenes point to the same levers: a fixed, advance-known calendar of access to the profession, real mentoring during placements and the first years, reasonable judicial timelines, and court-duty pay matching the work and responsibility, paid predictably.
What firms can do
For those running firms, the analysis leaves a concrete assignment: keep training young lawyers even if AI tools allow getting the work done with fewer people. If firms stop hiring juniors for the tasks now being automated, the question is who will teach the trade to the next generation of partners. The answer means reviewing matters with them, taking them to meetings and listening afterwards to what they understood.
The administrations also have work to do
The analysis distributes homework. It is for the administrations to set a calendar for access to the legal profession and stick to it, because looking for a job, committing to a firm or continuing to pay for a room are decisions that need foresight. It is also for them to ensure that a lawyer does not have to explain to a client that their trial will take four years to be held. And it is for them to pay legal aid in line with the work and responsibility it demands, because the fee scales and payment terms are part of the service and determine whether professionals can continue to devote time to it.
The text also recalls the paradox of automation: however much time AI saves preparing a brief, the trial date will remain the same, and if firms stop hiring young lawyers for automatable tasks, time will have to be devoted to teaching differently. Of the 15,801 registered lawyers under 40 who do not practise, the piece concludes, we do not know how many left disillusioned; what is within the sector's reach is to take care of those who want to stay. Its advice to young lawyers themselves is to keep training, choose areas where AI will find it hard to reach, such as courtroom advocacy, and specialise sensibly.
Source: Lawyerpress (30 October 2026).
Related links
Fuentes
- lawyerpress.com. Accessed 2 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
