"Passing the Bar Exam Became the 'Selection' Criterion for Elective Subjects" - Seobo Guk, Dean of Chungnam National University Law School

Specialized Course Enrollment
Less Than Half Compared to Early Stages
No New Hiring After Professor Retirement

International Transaction Law, International Law, Environmental Law. These are the so-called ‘Big 3’ subjects most frequently chosen by examinees among the elective subjects in the Bar Examination. Although elective subjects were introduced to emphasize law school specialization and legal professional expertise, the selection rates for other subjects such as Economic Law, Labor Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Tax Law remain only between 2% and 5%. Examinees tend to ‘choose’ subjects that are less burdensome and not disadvantageous in terms of standard scores rather than for their expertise.

This phenomenon contradicts the original purpose of law schools to ‘train specialized legal professionals through education,’ but a bigger problem is that elective subjects are being canceled due to lack of enrollment and professor recruitment is being halted, leading to an academic crisis.

Seo Boguk, Dean of Chungnam National University Law School, recently told Law Times, “The tendency of examinees to resolve elective subjects with minimal burden continues, and currently, there seems to be no room for improvement,” warning, “In five years, full-time law school professors who create elective subjects for the Bar Examination may disappear.”

Is there no solution? Dean Seo first proposed making the enrollment in elective subjects mandatory as a graduation requirement for law schools but evaluated on an absolute grading basis. Furthermore, he argued that the Bar Examination’s multiple-choice test should be changed to a first-year retention exam.

Below is the Q&A.

Seobo Guk, Dean of Chungnam National University Law School
[Photo by Baek Seong-hyun]

Q. How serious is the situation?

A. The elective subject system of the Bar Examination is moving toward a critical point, inconsistent with the founding purpose of law schools. Both schools and applicants cannot deny that reflecting school specialization in personal statements has no influence on law school admissions. The meaning of specialization and distinctiveness that elective subjects once held has disappeared, and the sole criterion for ‘choice’ has become whether it is advantageous for passing the Bar Examination.

Q. What causes the concentration on specific subjects?

A. First, the burden of mandatory subjects such as Civil Law, Criminal Law, and Public Law in the Bar Examination is excessively high, so examinees tend to resolve elective subjects with minimal burden. Additionally, students who have professional qualifications or related exam experience?such as labor consultants, patent attorneys, certified public accountants, and tax accountants?enter law schools, while other students avoid subjects overlapping with professional qualification exams. Since examinees with prior experience have an advantage in standard scores, new entrants are at a disadvantage. In reality, the selection rate for these subjects is only 2% to 5%. Under the current system, there seems to be no room for further improvement.

Q. What problems could arise if this continues?

A. Currently, there are about 20 to 30 law school professors nationwide per elective subject, but many do not create exam questions or are on research leave abroad, so only about 10 can actually create exam questions. Even among them, many decline due to personal reasons, making it difficult to appoint examiners. Many full-time professors for elective subjects are nearing retirement, and if the current trend worsens, it will become even harder to find professors to teach and create exam questions for elective subjects.

Also, in most law schools, the number of students attending specialized and basic law lectures has dropped to less than half compared to the early days. This applies to the so-called Big 3 subjects as well. As a result, when elective subject professors retire, schools are not hiring new professors for those subjects. If not promptly addressed, elective subject lectures may no longer be offered in law schools. In the future, preparation for Bar Examination elective subjects will rely solely on short-term special lectures or private academy materials, and exam questions will no longer be created by law school professors?a bizarre phenomenon that completely contradicts the founding purpose of law schools.

Q. Why do you fundamentally argue for reforming the Bar Examination system?

A. Fundamentally, the decline in specialized legal subjects is due to the excessive burden of the core subjects. The burden of Civil Law, Criminal Law, and Public Law in the Bar Examination has grown so large that there is no room to take elective subjects. This burden is separate from the issue of low pass rates and arises because examinees must take multiple-choice, case-type, and record-type questions for these three subjects all at once over five days.

To reduce the burden, the multiple-choice exam should be separated from the main exam and changed to a nationwide retention exam for first-year students progressing to the second year. Basic evaluation of a lawyer’s qualifications can be sufficiently assessed through case-type and record-type questions. Reflecting demands to reduce the overly broad scope of the current multiple-choice exam, I propose narrowing the scope to what is taught in the first year?namely, Constitution (excluding constitutional history), Civil Law (excluding family law), and Criminal Law?and changing it to a retention exam. The retention rate is expected to be about 5% to 10% of first-year students per school, approximately 100 to 200 out of 2,000 students nationwide. Passing the retention exam will reduce the burden of the main exam, allowing students to have more interest in specialized legal subjects from the second year onward.

Q. Changing the exam system itself would require budget and manpower first, right?

A. There is no need to change any aspect of the current Bar Examination administered by the Ministry of Justice, including question creation, grading, and management. No additional budget is required. Multiple-choice examiners can continue to create questions through existing retreats, and from the first day of the Bar Examination, third-year students and other main exam candidates will take case-type and record-type CBT exams. On the last day, about 2,000 first-year students nationwide will take the multiple-choice exam at their respective school exam centers.

Q. Are there any other expected benefits besides elective subjects?

A. Changing the multiple-choice exam to a retention exam can also prevent the recurring problem of errors (such as failing the Bar Examination five times). Under the current system, law school students who are not suited to law waste up to eight years. However, introducing a retention exam for first-year students will allow them to decide their career paths within two to three years after admission.

Jae-myung Ahn, Legal News Reporter

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.

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