The short answer
The State Bar of California counted 201,322 active attorneys on October 19, 2026, out of 301,677 on its roll.[1] Of the active attorneys, 172,443 work in California counties. Los Angeles County has 58,866 of them, or 6.1 for every 1,000 residents.[2]
We count lawyers because a firm's marketing starts with how crowded its market is. Naelar's US work focuses on law firms in Los Angeles.
The State Bar publishes counts by county. We set them against population. We also added two things from our own read of its public profiles: who works out of state, and where newer attorneys go.
Method and limits are at the end of the page.
How many attorneys are in California?
About 201,000. The State Bar's own page showed 201,322 active attorneys on October 19, 2026.[1] It also lists 75,405 inactive attorneys, 2,313 judges and 22,637 not eligible to practice, for 301,677 in all.[1]
Our August count found 200,800 active profiles, about 500 fewer than the State Bar's October figure. The gap is about 0.3%. Here is where those 200,800 attorneys said they work.
| Address on the profile | Active attorneys | Share |
|---|---|---|
| California | 172,120 | 85.7% |
| Another US state or DC | 25,643 | 12.8% |
| Outside the US | 2,968 | 1.5% |
| No usable address | 69 | 0.03% |
| All active attorneys | 200,800 | 100% |
About one in seven active California attorneys works outside the state. New York (2,666), Texas (2,457) and Washington, DC (2,367) hold the most. For a firm planning ads or search, those attorneys aren't local competitors. The State Bar's figure for California counties, 172,443, is the one to use.
How many of today's attorneys were admitted in each recent year?
Of the 200,800 active attorneys in our August read, 55,672 were admitted from 2016 to 2025. The chart groups attorneys who are active today by the year they were admitted.
Attorneys active in August 2026, by the year they were admitted (2016 to 2025, a floor)
Show the numbers
| Year admitted | Active attorneys today |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 4,922 |
| 2017 | 5,327 |
| 2018 | 4,589 |
| 2019 | 4,805 |
| 2020 | 2,455 |
| 2021 | 9,602 |
| 2022 | 5,689 |
| 2023 | 5,385 |
| 2024 | 5,875 |
| 2025 | 7,023 |
2021 has the most attorneys (9,602) and 2020 the fewest (2,455). The chart does not show why. It also does not show a steady rise or fall. Attorneys who have retired or gone inactive since are not in it, so it says nothing about earlier years.
Which California counties have the most lawyers?
Los Angeles County, by a wide margin. It has a third of the state's in-state attorneys and a quarter of its people. Orange, San Francisco and San Diego counties come next, with about 16,500 to 18,600 each.
- Los Angeles
- 58,866
- Orange
- 18,625
- San Francisco
- 17,691
- San Diego
- 16,563
- Santa Clara
- 9,514
- Sacramento
- 9,004
- Alameda
- 7,481
- San Mateo
- 4,849
- Contra Costa
- 4,123
- Riverside
- 3,265
- Ventura
- 2,759
- San Bernardino
- 2,360
| County | Per 1,000 | Share of state, and admitted 2021 or later |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 6.1 | 34.1% of state, 19.2% admitted 2021 or later |
| Orange | 5.9 | 10.8% of state, 16.2% admitted 2021 or later |
| San Francisco | 21.4 | 10.3% of state, 21.8% admitted 2021 or later |
| San Diego | 5.0 | 9.6% of state, 17.5% admitted 2021 or later |
| Santa Clara | 5.0 | 5.5% of state, 18.2% admitted 2021 or later |
| Sacramento | 5.6 | 5.2% of state, 16.4% admitted 2021 or later |
| Alameda | 4.6 | 4.3% of state, 14.7% admitted 2021 or later |
| San Mateo | 6.5 | 2.8% of state, 15.3% admitted 2021 or later |
| Contra Costa | 3.5 | 2.4% of state, 12.8% admitted 2021 or later |
| Riverside | 1.3 | 1.9% of state, 14.9% admitted 2021 or later |
| Ventura | 3.3 | 1.6% of state, 11.8% admitted 2021 or later |
| San Bernardino | 1.1 | 1.4% of state, 17.7% admitted 2021 or later |
| All California counties | 4.4 | 100% of state, 17.5% admitted 2021 or later |
San Francisco has 21 active attorneys for every 1,000 residents. Many of them work in the city's law firm and company offices and live elsewhere. So this is a count of offices more than of residents.
That statewide 4.4 per 1,000 is close to the 4.3 in the State Bar's attorney deserts study.[3] The study counts where attorneys live, as of January 1, 2025. The county table uses the address each attorney gives the State Bar, which for most is an office.
Which California counties have the fewest lawyers?
Sixteen of California's 58 counties have fewer than one active attorney per 1,000 residents. That is the American Bar Association's line for an "attorney desert", as the State Bar uses it.[5]
| County | Per 1,000 | Attorneys and residents |
|---|---|---|
| Glenn | 0.43 | 12 attorneys, 28,141 residents |
| Lassen | 0.50 | 14 attorneys, 28,117 residents |
| Merced | 0.51 | 151 attorneys, 297,260 residents |
| Madera | 0.61 | 103 attorneys, 167,927 residents |
| Kings | 0.61 | 94 attorneys, 154,327 residents |
| Imperial | 0.64 | 116 attorneys, 181,411 residents |
| Tulare | 0.69 | 333 attorneys, 485,146 residents |
| Tehama | 0.73 | 47 attorneys, 64,665 residents |
| San Benito | 0.77 | 54 attorneys, 70,082 residents |
| Colusa | 0.78 | 17 attorneys, 21,836 residents |
The two big Inland Empire counties sit just above that line. Riverside has 1.3 attorneys per 1,000 residents and San Bernardino 1.1, for about 4.8 million people between them. Los Angeles County has 6.1.
Is there a lawyer shortage in California?
Not evenly. The State Bar's justice gap study finds 16 counties are attorney deserts, with fewer than one active attorney per 1,000 residents, and 21 more are at risk of becoming one.[5] Statewide the ratio is 4.3 per 1,000, so the shortage sits in particular places, not across the whole state.[3]
For a national comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 863,700 lawyer jobs in the United States in 2025.[7] That counts jobs, not licenses, so it does not compare directly with the State Bar's active-attorney counts above.
What do these numbers mean for a firm's marketing?
They tell you how many lawyers you share a market with before you spend anything. A firm in Los Angeles County shares it with about 58,900 active attorneys. A firm in Riverside County shares it with about 3,300.
Not every attorney advertises or takes the same cases, so treat the count as the ceiling on competition, not the number of rivals. Fewer lawyers in a county doesn't mean cheaper ads either: click prices follow what advertisers bid, not how many lawyers live nearby.
Three practical points follow:
- In Los Angeles, a firm usually has to narrow by case type, language or neighborhood to stand out. Our count of Los Angeles lawyers by practice area shows which case types are most crowded.
- Most Los Angeles firms are very small. Our count of Los Angeles law firm sizes shows how many attorneys work alone.
- Where attorneys are scarce, people may search from a long way off. A firm that serves those counties needs pages that name the places it really serves, not a list of every town.
Whatever the count, the plan still has to say which cases you want and how you'll measure them. Our law firm marketing plan guide starts there. For one county in depth, see Los Angeles law firm marketing.
How we counted
The county counts and the statewide total are the State Bar's own, read on October 20, 2026. We divided each county's active attorneys by the Census Bureau's July 2025 population estimate.
Two figures are ours. We used public State Bar attorney profiles, read in August 2026. We kept the 200,800 profiles that showed an active license, and sorted them by the state in their address and by admission date. We publish totals only, and no attorney is named.
To put our own profiles in counties, we matched each ZIP code to a county with the Census Bureau's 2020 file.[6] For Los Angeles County that gave 58,645 active attorneys, within 0.4% of the State Bar's 58,866.
In a few very small counties our ZIP matching was off, so every county count on this page uses the State Bar's table instead.
A few limits apply:
- The address is the one each attorney gives the State Bar. For most it is an office, but some give a home or a mailing address.
- Our August read left out profiles that showed no license status, so our own counts are a floor.
- Licenses change every day. The State Bar's figures are for October 20, 2026, ours for August 2026.
- We count attorneys, not firms, and an attorney with an active license may not be practicing.
We didn't contact any attorney or firm for this count. It uses only what the State Bar shows on its public site.
Size up your own market in 15 minutes
- Find your county in the tables above and note its attorneys per 1,000 residents.
- On your phone, search Google for your main case type plus your city, the way a client would.
- Count the firms in the ads, the map and the first page of results. Those are the competitors your clients actually see.
- Repeat it for the next town you'd like to serve, and compare the two counts.
Sources
- The State Bar of California, "Attorney Demographics", attorney status table. "Information current as of Oct 19 2026". apps.calbar.ca.gov/members/demographics.aspx. Checked October 20, 2026.
- The State Bar of California, "Attorney Demographics by County and Status". Live table, no date shown. apps.calbar.ca.gov/members/demographics_counties.aspx. Read October 20, 2026.
- The State Bar of California, Justice Gap Study, "Attorney Deserts", statewide ratio. Attorney counts as of January 1, 2025, by residence. No page date shown. publications.calbar.ca.gov/justice-gap-study/attorney-deserts. Checked October 20, 2026.
- US Census Bureau, "County Population Totals: 2020-2025", Vintage 2025, July 1, 2025 estimates. census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-counties-total.html. Checked October 20, 2026.
- The State Bar of California, "Attorney Deserts", definitions. No page date shown. publications.calbar.ca.gov/justice-gap-study/attorney-deserts. Checked October 20, 2026.
- US Census Bureau, "2020 ZCTA to County Relationship File". census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/geo/relationship-files.2020.html. Checked October 20, 2026.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, "Lawyers", page last modified August 27, 2026. bls.gov/ooh/legal/lawyers.htm. Checked October 29, 2026. Federal statistics. It counts jobs, not licenses.