Queensland lawyers smash the language barrier
Recently there was an advertisement for a lawyer in Brisbane who could speak Mandarin.
It prompted the thought of whether the ability to speak a second language was a growing trend in the Queensland legal profession, and if so, what second languages were the most popular for lawyers?
Lawyers in Queensland can currently speak more than 70 languages, from Afrikaans and Arabic to Yiddish and Yoruba. Two things stand out when looking at the data for lawyers speaking a second language over the last 40 years. The first is the explosion in total numbers (figure one); the second is the type of languages spoken by newly admitted lawyers, as shown in table one.
Figure 1 Total number of newly admitted lawyers who can speak a second language by admission year
Looking at the number of lawyers who could speak a second language being admitted, this was steady in the ’70s before growing slowly in the ’80s and exploding in the ’90s and ’00s. However there has been a decrease in the lawyers who can speak a second language being admitted over the last five years.
To ensure the increase in the number of newly admitted lawyers communicating in a second language was not solely related to the increase in admitted lawyers over the years, the percentage of newly admitted lawyers who spoke a second language was plotted against the total number of admitted lawyers for each year (figure two).
Figure 2 Percentage of newly admitted lawyers speaking a second language by admission year
As shown in figure two, the percentage of newly admitted lawyers who can speak a second language has fluctuated greatly year on year. However, the overall trend has been an increase. At least one in five lawyers admitted since 2000 can communicate in a second language.
The other noticeable change is that the second language spoken has changed across the decades.
Table 1 The top five most commonly spoken language by newly admitted lawyers by decade
French has been the most common second language for lawyers admitted into Queensland and is still the most common second language for admitted lawyers practising in Queensland. In the ’70s, continental European languages were the most common second language. These were gradually supplanted by Asian languages, starting with Japanese, then Mandarin and finally Cantonese.
This rise is likely to be due to a combination of factors, including languages taught in schools, family histories and business opportunities. Spanish and Hindi look like the next two to break into the top five, with Korean maybe a decade or so away if current trends hold.
There are now some 360 practising lawyers in Queensland who can speak Mandarin. It is currently the second most common second language for lawyers in Queensland, so there is every possibility that job vacancy was filled.
If you speak a second language and want to let potential clients know, it is easy to update your profile on the QLS website. By logging into ‘Your QLS’ and clicking on demographic information, Language is at the bottom.
