"Self-Quarantine Lawyer, What About Court Appearances?" Lawyerd Company Steps Up as a Troubleshooter

Utilizing Over 3,000 Lawyers for Proxy Matching Service
Providing Trial Broadcast Service... Real-Time Progress Tracking
Launching 'Rotary' for Matching Lawyers with Small and Medium Business Owners

Kang, a lawyer living in Seoul, became a quarantine subject due to close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case during the height of the pandemic. He was in a critical situation with a trial scheduled in Jeju Island two days later. Since there are legal disadvantages if a lawyer fails to appear in court, he had to attend the trial without fail. While looking for a 'proxy attorney' to appear in court on his behalf, Kang discovered the proxy attorney service offered by Loyard Company. He used an application that easily matches lawyers with proxy attorneys. Kang said, "Fortunately, since I had already sufficiently submitted written arguments, I was able to get help from a lawyer living in Jeju."

In the legal profession, there is a customary proxy attorney system. A proxy attorney is the official title for a lawyer appointed in a civil trial, and a proxy attorney of a proxy attorney means a lawyer appointed by another lawyer. In civil litigation, most arguments are conducted in writing (documents), and on the actual trial day, there are many procedures to simply check if there are any special issues. Therefore, most trials end within five minutes. However, even though the procedure is simple, if a lawyer fails to appear in court, it is considered as agreeing with the opposing party's claims, which causes disadvantages, so attendance is essential. For this reason, lawyers often ask another lawyer in the same region to attend the trial with the client's consent, and such appointed lawyers are called proxy attorneys.

Son Su-hyuk, CEO of Loyard Company (pictured), said in an interview with Asia Economy on the 15th, "I once traveled from Seocho-dong, Seoul to Busan to attend a trial at the Busan District Court, only to experience the trial ending in about 30 seconds, which was quite laughable." He added, "While running a law office in 2020, I launched an app to resolve such shortcomings and to allow lawyers to easily match proxy attorneys." The proxy attorney service, launched in May 2020, has had over 3,000 lawyers registered and recorded more than 9,000 matching contracts as of September. The number of members corresponds to about 12% of the 26,000 practicing lawyers announced by the Korean Bar Association.

CEO Son explained, "Users of the proxy attorney service include a wide range of lawyers, from those in their early years to those with over 20 years of experience. The service was most frequently used when requesting the court to conclude the trial after finishing arguments through documents." In the early days of the service, since members were not distributed nationwide, Loyard Company staff personally called law offices in Sokcho to find proxy attorneys for local trials. Lawyer Lee used the proxy attorney service in real-time at the Seoul Southern District Court last June. He said, "The preceding trial was delayed much longer than scheduled, making it difficult to attend the following trial, but I was able to connect with a lawyer on-site through the proxy attorney service and request attendance."

Loyard Company also provides a real-time trial broadcasting service. In individual courtrooms within the court, dozens of trials are held daily, and in small claims courts, hundreds of trials occur. Due to the nature of trials, it is difficult to strictly adhere to the assigned times, and delays are common. Until now, the only way to check this was by watching the electronic display board installed in front of the courtroom. For example, if you arrive at the courtroom by 2:50 PM for a 3 PM case, you might find that the 2:20 PM case is still ongoing, forcing you to wait there for over 30 minutes.

To improve this inefficiency, CEO Son planned a service that broadcasts trial statuses in real-time to lawyers through the proxy attorney app. Since June, the service has been broadcasting trial statuses starting with the Seoul Central District Court and from July, the Seoul Southern District Court. CEO Son said, "Since starting the trial status broadcast on Proxy Attorney, the number of lawyer members has increased more than threefold compared to the usual growth rate over two months," adding, "It seems that addressing lawyers' minor needs has received great response."

Meanwhile, Loyard Company is developing a corporate lawyer matching solution called 'Rotary,' scheduled to launch at the end of this month. It was selected for the TIPS program by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups last month and will receive 500 million KRW in R&D funding over the next two years. Rotary is a service that connects small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners with lawyers who can resolve their legal service requests. CEO Son stated, "There are about 6.89 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Korea, of which 6.85 million have neither advisory lawyers nor internal legal personnel," and added, "Through the Rotary service, we aim to foster a corporate culture where lawyers are not burdensome figures but service providers who solve everyday legal issues."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.