Lawyers, the challenge of bridging gaps

It is a legal profession that is still characterised by large geographical, gender and age gaps, that which is photographed by the surveys on the sector. Female lawyers continue to earn half as much as their male colleagues, marking the highest gender pay gap among the liberal professions; in Lombardy, the average income is 3.5 times that of the 'poorest' region, Calabria; and 1.5% of the over 233,000 lawyers contribute one third - with super-invoices in excess of 500,000 euro - to the global GDP of the legal profession.

On these and other distortions - such as mono-commitment, which is increasingly frequent among young people entering (long and suffered) firms - the announced reform of the legal profession should intervene.

But there are also many signs of dynamism: from the growth of the profession's GDP (the global turnover declared in 2024 is 15.5 billion, +5.2% compared to 2023), to average incomes over 47 thousand euros, able to beat inflation.

And equally reassuring signals are coming, as we report in this dossier, from the areas of law most affected by transformations, whether by legislation or the market: such as tax law, grappling with the implementation of tax reform, or M&A, which is evolving into pre- and post-acquisition advice to accompany investors even in this turbulent phase of the international economy.

And other signs of dynamism also emerge from the survey, carried out by Statista for Il Sole 24 Ore, which highlights the mentions of law firms of excellence in 2025 received by the more than 25,000 lawyers called to participate: there are 52 debutants in this seventh edition and 371, overall, in the list. For a total of 754 mentions, by sector of specialisation or presence in the territory.