The Law Society of New South Wales released the 2022 national profile of solicitors in late April.

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It found Tasmania had the lowest ratio of solicitors to population of one in every 642 people.

The next closest is South Australia with one in 416, meanwhile the ACT has a solicitor for every 154 people.

It's a situation Launceston Community Legal Centre (LCLC) chief executive Stephen Karpeles says demonstrates the shortage of lawyers for people in the North, and the north-west coast.

"We're seeing it particularly on the north-west coast, because the other thing the report shows is that the lawyers are concentrated in cities, and predominantly in Hobart," Mr Karpeles said.

"What it means is that when people do have legal issues, they either have to wait a long time to see a lawyer, or they'll end up representing themselves."

He said someone representing themselves meant justice was less likely to be served.

"If they represent themselves, they're more likely to make a mistake or adopt an unreasonable position and it extends proceedings," he said.

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"We just want to see everybody ideally get access to lawyers, or even better if they don't need lawyers in the first place."

One program LCLC runs to help deter people from needing a lawyer is the legal literacy program, which assists people in understanding complex, legal documents.

The program is run in locations across the North and Mr Karpeles said they hoped to expand the program to the north-west coast.

Law Society of Tasmania president Amanda Thompson agreed there was a shortage of lawyers in Tasmania.

"I haven't done the maths, but I can almost assure you it's worse in the regions," Miss Thompson said.

"The majority - 82 per cent - of lawyers in Tasmania are in the cities."

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The state has the highest proportion of solicitors working in the cities out of all Australian jurisdictions. Tasmanian cities include Launceston, Burnie, Devonport and Hobart.

Only five per cent of a total of 891 Tasmanian lawyers work in country or rural areas, which includes Deloraine, Bicheno and Latrobe.

The report also suggests a growth rate in the number of solicitors of 99 per cent since 2011. However Miss Thompson clarified the figure was inflated with government lawyers not being counted in 2011, and now being included in the figure.

She said a significant shift Tasmania was experiencing was law graduates moving away from practicing in criminal law.

Miss Thompson said it was causing issues to accessing justice, and believed it was contributing to backlogs in criminal courts.

She said there was hope it would change following the decision of a couple lawyers moving from legal aid to their own practice.

Work with the law society and the university is underway, Miss Thompson said to start an internship in earlier years of a degree before losing the "cream of the crop" to interstate firms.

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Without a magical formula to inflate Tasmania's solicitor numbers, Miss Thompson urged young lawyers to consider the regions.

"The regions are the place to go," she said.

She said working outside of the cities provided greater exposure to the court settings, networking and other opportunities.

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