Disciplinary Report Released for New Jersey Attorneys

The Office of Attorney Ethics has released its annual disciplinary report. Here are some of the highlights of the report. Go to the judiciary page of New Jersey for full report. It gives the number of attorneys who practice her, by county and the number of attorneys who have been disciplined as well as been disbarred:

1. Despite losing some 6,000 attorneys from its rolls as a result of administrative disbarments, the December 2007 attorney population in the State stood at 82,893. This represents more than a 2.4% increase from 2006. This total provides one attorney for every 106 people our State with a population of 8,685, 920.

2. Almost 57% of the lawyers admitted to practice in New Jersey were admitted since 1991. A full 72% of New Jersey attorneys have been admitted since 1986. By contrast, only 483 lawyers remain who were admitted to practice before the year 1951.

3. Approximately 30% of New Jersey lawyers range in age from 40 to 49. A further 27% are between 30 and 39.

4. About 68% of New Jersey attorneys are also admitted to practice in another State, mostly in New York and Pennsylvania.

5. Just over 41% of New Jersey lawyers are engaged in the private practice of law, a total of just over 34,000. One third of these are in solo-practices.

6. The largest number of private practitioners is in Essex County (5240), followed by Camden (3818), Bergen (3793) and Morris 3151). Salem County has the fewest practitioners with only 57.

7. There were 1,722,166 attorneys licensed to practice law in the United States on July 1st of 2007. New Jersey ranked 7th in the country and had 4.62% of the national attorney population at that time.

8. A total of 1553 ethics grievances were filed against the lawyers in active practice in the State in 2007. Approximately 2.38% of the attorneys in active practice were subject to the filing of a grievance. This represented an increase of 8.7% in the number of filings.

9. Final discipline in 2007 included 31 disbarments, 33 suspension from practice, 13 censures, 25 reprimands and 19 admonitions.

10. As in prior years, discipline was imposed in most instances for knowing misappropriation of client funds, followed by a gross pattern of neglect, other money issues and criminal offenses.