[Invest&Law] "Lawyers in Oversupply?No Need for New Recruits for 20 Years... 'ACP' Introduction Is Encouraging"

"There are already more than 5,000 lawyers in oversupply. If there is no room for the market to expand, we may not need to recruit any more legal professionals for nearly the next 20 years. Adjusting the number of successful bar examinees is merely a temporary measure to address an urgent issue. What we need is to overhaul the system that has not been touched for 18 years."

Kim Jungwook, President of the Korean Bar Association, made these remarks regarding the oversupply of legal professionals during an interview with The Asia Business Daily at the Bar Association Hall in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 22nd. He emphasized that not only should the number of successful bar examinees be managed, but also that the root causes-structural flaws in the law school system and the proliferation of similar professional fields-must be addressed together.

Kim Jungwook, President of the Korean Bar Association, is giving an interview to The Asia Business Daily on the 22nd at the Bar Association Hall in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yoon Dongju

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According to the Korean Bar Association, the average number of cases handled per lawyer per month has dropped from 6.97 in 2008 to less than one case for general matters today. The median annual income for lawyers is KRW 30 million, the lowest among professional occupations. The introduction of AI has made the job market for new lawyers even more stagnant, and hiring by public institutions has declined by one-third. The total number of new hires has also dropped by 20%. President Kim said, "If the median income is KRW 30 million, that means there are thousands of lawyers earning KRW 10-20 million," adding, "It is unrealistic to demand public service and human rights work from public interest lawyers with 15 years of experience who are earning only KRW 2-3 million a month."

He pointed to the failure to consolidate similar legal professions, which was promised by authorities at the time of the law school's introduction, as one of the main causes of the current situation. He explained, "The Judicial System Reform Promotion Committee set a goal in 2006 to increase the number of lawyers to the OECD average, based on the premise of consolidating similar professions, but this consolidation ultimately failed due to conflicting interests among each field." He added, "By around 2021, the target number of lawyers had already been exceeded, similar fields have proliferated even further, and the number of lawyers has quadrupled over the past 20 years."

When including similar professions such as administrative scriveners, judicial scriveners, labor attorneys, patent attorneys, and tax accountants, the number of citizens per professional in Korea drops to around 80-90. Some law schools, even 15 years after their introduction, still have pass rates in the 20% range, yet face no sanctions. He stated, "Medical education evaluations have binding force and can even result in the closure of schools, but law schools lack such compulsion. If a school admits excellent students but still has only a 20% pass rate, that is a problem with the school itself." He stressed the need to reduce the proportion of law school professors on the evaluation committee and to grant binding authority to corrective measures.

President Kim cited the introduction of Attorney-Client Privilege (ACP) as a key achievement of his tenure. He noted, "The psychological stability of defense attorneys has improved, and the global standing of Korea's legal profession has been substantially elevated." Since its recent revision, ACP has been evaluated as having been successfully established, as shown by a series of precedent-setting rulings. The impact is also being felt in international work. Kim said, "In the past, overseas legal teams and law firms were concerned that Korea did not meet global standards in cooperation. Now that ACP has passed, the potential for collaboration has increased and our legal system is evolving accordingly."

Regarding certain network law firms that engage in excessive marketing and illegal solicitation of cases, he said, "Fierce competition has led to atypical law office structures and repeated malicious sales practices that undermine trust in the legal profession." He asserted, "An excessive supply of lawyers can result in a decline in the quality of legal services and a weakening of the public interest." Some law firms, he noted, are pouring huge amounts of capital into monopolizing top positions in search portals, even buying up blogs under others' names to run advertisements. Cases of violations of the lawyer advertising regulations numbered only three in 2021, but soared to 93 last year-a 31-fold increase. Some network law firms divide duties under the guise of 'systems,' with separate lawyers for consultation, document drafting, and court appearances. In this structure, clients often do not know who is truly responsible for their case and end up suffering from a lack of communication. As a result, the number of disciplinary actions against lawyers, which was 46 in 2021, surged to 201 last year-an increase of about 4.3 times.

President Kim said, "Although the current Attorney-at-Law Act only stipulates main and branch offices, these firms use terms like headquarters and branches interchangeably, causing confusion for clients." He added, "To prevent potential harm to clients in this factory-like structure, it is necessary to implement regulations that clearly distinguish and assign responsibility to resident lawyers at branch offices."

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