ILSAC's third International Legal Services Statistics Survey (2008-09)

Overview

Total income from export of legal services and international activities in 2008-09 was $709.1m. This was a 5% increase since 2006-07 ($675.1m) and a 31% increase since 2004-05 ($543.2m).
Despite a 5% increase, there was a general downturn in demand for international legal services in a number of countries in 2008-09, including in three of the top four major export markets for legal services for Australia (US & Canada, China & Hong Kong, Europe (excluding UK) and UK).
Total export income for legal services (adjusted to align with ABS definitions) was $578.4m. ABS’ published figure for total export income for legal services in 2008-09 was $538m.

The top six markets in order of total export and international activity were: US & Canada, China & Hong Kong, Europe (excluding UK), UK, Pacific (including New Zealand but excluding Australia) and Singapore.
US & Canada remains Australia’s largest export market for legal services ($184.2m). US & Canada account for 26% of the market. China & Hong Kong remained the second largest market ($100.8m) with a 14% market share. Europe (excluding UK) was third ($72.8m) with a 10% market share.
Asia is Australia’s largest regional market ($225.2m) accounting for 32% of the entire market. Although there was an 8% decrease from 2006-07, there were notable increases in export income in the Japanese and Singaporean markets. The Japanese market increased by $14m (60% increase since 2006-07) and the Singaporean market increased by $6m (16% increase since 2006-07).

The top four areas of work done by Australian legal and related service providers were Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Telecommunications (28% of all work done, $197.1m), Corporate (25% of all work done, $178.9), Litigation (10.7% of all work done, $76m) and in Banking and Finance (7.1% of all work done, $50.2m).
Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Telecommunications work has increased by 26% since 2006-07.

Cross-border supply was the most favoured mode of service for all types of work except for energy and resources work which favoured commercial presence and arbitration work which favoured fly-in fly-out mode of service.
More mature markets seem to be able to tolerate a low level of commercial presence. For example, the US market had no branch offices. Developing markets such as China are more reliant on the existence of a branch office. In China & Hong Kong, 54% of all work was delivered through commercial presence.

Ten biggest Australian firms generated $471.7m of total export income for 2008-09 and accounted for 67% of export of legal services and international activities. This figure has decreased from $533.3m (79%) in 2006-07 which suggest that smaller firms are entering foreign legal markets.
Law firms delivered 75% of legal and related services overseas, patent and trademark attorneys delivered 21% of legal and related services overseas.