Italy: Lawyers Numerous, Justice Scarce
Italy has four times more layers than France, despite its similar size.
November 28, 2013
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.
