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Italy: Lawyers Numerous, Justice Scarce

Italy has four times more layers than France, despite its similar size.

November 28, 2013

Credit: Andrey Burmakin - Shutterstock.com

1. In the World Bank’s 2013 global ease of doing business survey, Italy ranked 160th out of 185 countries.

2. Italy’s justice system takes about 1,210 days to resolve a commercial dispute.

3. Italy has a backlog of civil lawsuits of about 5 million cases. That number is increasing by 10% a year.

4. Italy has 240,000 lawyers – well over four times more than France at 54,000.

5. Lawyers also make up more than 10% of the members of Italy’s parliament.

From Italy’s powerful lobbies flex their muscles by Guy Dinmore (Financial Times)

 

 

Takeaways

Italy's legal system takes about 1,210 days to resolve a commercial dispute, making it terrible for doing business.

Italy has a backlog of civil lawsuits of about 5 million cases, increasing 10% a year.

Italy has 240,000 lawyers, well over 4x more than France at 54,000.

More than 1 in 10 members of the Italian parliament is a lawyer.