1. Purpose and Method

  In Korea, a new judicial reform began to be discussed in the early 1990’s. At the center of those discussions was the need to reform the way legal professionals are trained and selected in Korea. This call for change stemmed

from the awareness that the existing selection system, the national judicial examination (called sabeopsiheom in Korean) created an exclusive and anti-competitive ‘legal circles’ that are ill-equipped to address the new demands

and needs for legal services brought on by changes in the civil society, including globalization, informatization, and specialization. In addition, a consensus emerged that the ‘judicial reform for people,’ which is the ultimate goal of judicial reform,’ requires legal professionals capable of providing easily accessible high-quality legal services to the general public. In order to train these lawyers, Korea needed to fundamentally change the system by which the country fosters those professionals. As such, the Korean professional law school (called beopak jeonmun daehagwon, shortened as beopjeonwon) system was adopted for the purpose of achieving the goals of the judicial reform.

  However, the adoption of the law school system involved a fundamental paradigm shift from ‘selection through a national examination’ to ‘fostering through education.’ This meant severe conflicts of interest among different legal

professions, which shaped a unique law school system predicated on control by the legal circles. The unique system faced a series of practical issues that made it difficult to align the system with the educational ideologies emphasized at the time of its adoption. In addition, the bar examination under the new system was implemented as a ‘selection’ test rather than a ‘qualification test’ which, contrary to expectations, resulted in a twisted version of the originally envisioned law education. Due to these issues, which have plagued the system since its inception, the professional law school system is still pelted with criticisms after 13 years. However, it is also true that the system produced 17,761 lawyers so far. Then, we need to examine what changes the system brought into the Korean society, under the light of the original goals of the judicial reform. Specifically, we need to examine how much the increase in lawyers–which was one of the main purposes of the system–improved the accessibility of legal services, how much the system lowered the entrance barrier for people across various disciplines and classes, and whether the system meaningfully contributes to the further specialization of the legal service market.

  As such, this study analyzes and uates the professional law school system based on the purpose of the Korean legal reform: improving the accessibility of legal professions; expanding legal services; training legal professionals specializing in various areas; and reforming the professional culture in the legal circles. Specifically, this study reviews the purpose of the professional law school system as part the judicial reform, analyzes the legal issues posed before and after the enactment of the Act on the Establishment and Management of Professional Law School and the National Bar Examination Act, as well as the resulting legislative and judicial changes. This study also analyzes the current operational status of the Korean professional law schools, and reviews the findings of a questionnaire survey on lawyers trained at professional law schools to assess the achievements and limitations of the professional law school system hidden from the official statistics. This study uses the ex-post legislative uation to assess the reality of legal professional education ten years after the launch of the law school system by comparing it with one of the main theses of the judicial reform, the transition to ‘fostering legal professionals through education.’ This study also discusses and uates the suitability and efficiency of the national bar examination adopted as part of the professional law school system.

2. Legislative and Judicial Changes Under the Professional Law School System

  First, this study tracked the legislative changes and trends regarding two laws supporting the professional law school system: the Act on the Establishment and Management of Professional Law School (hereinafter the “Professional Law School Act”) and the National Bar Examination Act.

  Numerous amendments have been proposed for the Professional Law School Act since it was enacted by the National Assembly. However, few of the proposed amendments covered the key issues discussed at the time of its enactment. Only two of the proposals included changes regarding the total admission cap for professional law schools, which was one of the most controversial issues at the time of adopting the law school system. With regards to special admission programs for disadvantaged groups for lowering the entrance barrier into legal professions, the government set a mandatory percentage of students to be admitted through the programs by amending the Enforcement Decree of the Professional Law School Act. Another purpose of the Act, reducing interregional gaps in law school admissions, was achieved to an extent by the enactment of the Act on the Development of Local Universities and Colleges and Regional Human Resources.

  As for the National Bar Examination Act, when the Korean professional law schools produced the first group of lawyers in 2012, they faced widespread criticisms against the massive operating costs of the schools and the examination, unfair admission practices, and lack of transparency caused by the non-disclosure of bar examination scores. These issues emboldened the voices demanding the return to the old national judicial examination, as well as legislative proposals reflecting such demand. The common idea behind these proposals was that, by keeping the national judicial examination alive, the government needs to restore the ‘social status ladder’ kicked down by the adoption of the professional law school system, which runs contrary to the original purpose of the judicial reform. The National Bar Examination Act included provisions that restrict the period for taking the national bar examination as well as the number of tests that a student is allowed to take. In constitutional lawsuits against these provisions in 2016, 2018, and 2021, the Constitutional Court found the provisions constitutional, holding that the provisions serve ‘legitimate legislative purposes,’ and employ ‘appropriate means within the legislative discretion.’ Other amendments were proposed regarding the disclosure of national bar examination scores, after the non-disclosure policy was abolished by the relevant Constitutional Court and Supreme Court decisions.

  Regarding the judicial changes brought on by the Professional Law School Act, this study also reviews a number of Constitutional Court decisions rendered after the adoption of the professional law school system. In the early years of the professional law school system, the Constitutional Court mostly adjudicated cases involving the equity between professional law school students on one hand, and people preparing for the national judicial  examination and students at the Judicial Research and Training Institute and possible infringement on the latter group’s rights. Then, after the first group of law school students passed the bar examination, the Constitutional Court saw in increase in the constitutional appeals regarding the admission standards of the professional law schools. The Constitutional Court rejected all of these appeals, holding that the public interest served by the Professional Law School Act exceeds the private interest infringed on by the Act.

  In addition, the largest percentage of Constitutional Court cases involving the National Bar Examination Act is taken up by cases on alleged right infringement by the restriction on the period and number of examinations. In these cases, the Constitutional Court clarified its position as follows: the National Bar Examination Act serves a legitimate legislative purpose of preventing waste of national human resources (not a small percentage of national judicial exam applicants spent years preparing for the exam, only to fail; these applicants were colloquially called ‘gosi nangin,’ or ‘judicial exam vagabonds’); the restriction on application opportunities constitutes an appropriate means of achieving the purpose within the legislative discretion; and the claimant’s basic rights infringed on by the Act is outbalanced the public interest served by the Act (preventing waste of human resources and retaining the  professional education function provided by the professional law schools). In contrast, the Constitutional Court recognized the unconstitutionality of non-disclosure of national bar examination scores in most of the cases brought against the relevant provision in the National Bar Examination Act. The court found that the non-disclosure hardly constitutes an appropriate means of achieving the legislative purpose. The court also held the the provision violates the principle of balance between interests, because the public interest purportedly served by the provisions cannot be achieved by refusing to disclose the exam scores, and the provisions severely infringes on the applicants’ right to access the information that is crucial for their job seeking efforts.

  In these decisions regarding the Professional Law School Act and the National Bar Examination Act, the Constitutional Court respected the legislative purpose and intention behind the two systems, while clearly stating its position that, by carefully balancing the rights and interests involved, the court should ensure that people’s basic rights are not unfairly violated by restrictive means aimed at facilitating state functions.

3. Operational Status of Professional Law Schools

  The following official statistics provide insights into the achievements and limitations of Korea’s professional law school system.

  After the enrollment of the first law school students in 2009, law major students took up more than 40% of all law school students. The percentage began to decline in 2015, however, dropping to 8.17% by 2022. As for the percentage of bar exam passers by undergraduate major, law major students accounted for more than 50% of those who passed the first six national bar examinations. The percentage began to decline, and the percentages of law major and non-law major bar exam passers in 2022 were 22.37% and 77.63%, respectively. 67% of lawyers who passed the national judicial examination were admitted to the bar under 30. In contrast, under the new system, only 40% of lawyers were under 30 when they passed the bar examination. In addition, 19.4% of people who passed the national bar examination were aged 35 or older, which is more than double the percentage of the same age group under the national judicial examination system. These statistics suggest that, as professional law schools continue to train new lawyers, Korea will see an increase in lawyers with more diverse backgrounds, majors, and experiences capable of meeting the needs for legal services across various areas in the Korean society.

  We also looked into how the professional law school system widened the access to legal professions, and the findings indicate that, over the last decade, at least 500 of the lawyers trained at law schools were from disadvantaged groups, who benefited from special admission programs, regionally balanced selection policies, and full scholarships for vulnerable groups. In addition, under the old system, only four universities outside the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) had five or more students who passed the national judicial examination. Under the new system, around 40% of bar exam passers were trained at law schools outside the SCA over the last decade. The findings should not be taken as evidence that disadvantaged groups and students outside of the SCA enjoy sufficiently wide access to legal professions. However, law schools are clearly providing these students with opportunities and possibilities for being admitted to the bar.

  Among the trainees at the Judicial Research and Training Institute (the JRTI trained would-be lawyers who passed the national judicial examination), only around 15.2% of them found jobs at government bodies, public institutions, and private firms. Despite their apparent need for lawyers, many central and local government bodies were hesitant to hire lawyers due to high costs. As a result, the Korean public sector largely lacked in-house legal professionals to provide legal services. However, the professional law school system increased the number of lawyers admitted to the bar each year, which also meant the growth of lawyers finding jobs in non-litigation areas and at government bodies, public institutions, or local governments. These changes significantly contributed to addressing the gap of legal services in the Korean society.

  However, despite these outcomes, the original purpose of the law school system (to train highly specialized legal professionals through specialized education at law schools) has been rendered largely moot by the current practices regarding the national bar examination, including pass rate control, the extensive number of subjects to cover, and the focus on memorization. In particular, Korea set the national bar examination pass rate at 75% of the total law school admission quota to control the number of lawyers admitted to the bar, resulting in a pass rate of slightly over 50%. This practice has been widely criticized as making law schools focus on the bar examination rather than proper training for legal professionals. The state control of the bar examination pass rate undermines the underlying purpose of the professional law school system, which is to shift the focus of the qualification process for legal professionals from ‘control and management’ by the government to ‘autonomy and competition’ through law school education.

4. Survey on the Outcomes of the Professional Law School System

  This study included surveys on 1,000 Koreans as legal service users and 743 law school students and 500 lawyers from law schools as (would-be) legal service providers, to identify changes in and gaps between the perception of the respective groups regarding access to legal professions, fostering of legal professionals through education, qualitative and quantitative changes in legal services, and changes in the professional culture in the legal circles.

  To survey questions on the effect of the professional law school system on access to legal professions, law school students and lawyers who trained at law schools largely agreed that law schools provide students with more opportunities and possibilities to become legal professionals. However, they perceived financial stress coming from tuitions and private education services as an entrance barrier to the legal circles. The same questions were given to the general public respondents, despite their reliance on vicarious experience and knowledge in assessing the access to legal professions. A large number of them agreed that the professional law school provides such opportunities and possibilities to a far wider range of people, whereas the national judicial examination provided the opportunities only to a small number of elites. The percentage of positive answers was higher among respondents who personally experienced legal services, which suggests that the positive perception stems from the increased number of bar admissions under the professional law school system.

  As for the fostering of legal professionals through education, both law school students and law school graduates gave positive answers to questions on ‘fostering of legal professionals through education’ and ‘fostering of legal professionals with wider specialties.’ However, the percentage of positive responses declined each year, signaling the need for reconsidering the overall direction of education at professional law schools. As has been pointed out by various media outlets and academic literature, this study identified various issues with specialized education currently provided by the law schools. The law school students and graduates participating in the survey also clearly agreed that many of the specialized courses at law schools are perfunctory as the schools focus on bar exam preparation, and there exist practical barriers to training specialized legal professionals.

  As for the quantitative and qualitative changes in legal services, both lawyers and general public respondents reported positive perception on the increased number of bar admissions and its impact on the contact points between the legal service market and the general public. However, the two groups of respondents reported largely discrepant perceptions toward attorney fees, which serves as a realistic criterion on the accessibility of legal services. Some of the lawyers participating in the surveys answered that attorney fees have not been lowered to a level that the general public want. These findings indicate that improving the accessibility of legal services requires not only more lawyers, but also lower attorney fees. When asked about qualitative changes in legal services, the general public respondents tended to consider changes in prices, availability, public legal services, and other . rather than the qualifications and expertise of the lawyers providing the services. On the other hand, many law school graduates currently providing legal services answered that the law school system has produced lawyers with enhanced expertise in specific specialties, and consider the enhanced expertise as changes necessary to address changes in the legal service market.

  Lastly, to the questions asking whether the professional law school system contributed to addressing and changing unfair practices in the legal professional culture, the general public respondents were not particularly positive about changes in the legal circles despite the fact that ten years have passed since the first group of law school graduates were admitted to the bar. The negativity seems to stem from the general perception that legal professionals constitute a privileged class (average score: 4.04) and passing the bar examination is a means of climbing up the social ladder as much as the national judicial examination in the past (average score: 3.81).

5. Conclusions and Policy Suggestions

  It has been a decade since Korea abolished the national judicial examination and adopted the professional law school system with a view to fostering legal professionals through education rather than examinations. However, the efforts to consolidate the law school system have been undermined by various issues that have plagued the system since the beginning. The system has been constantly exposed to suspicions and criticisms stemming from the interest of the legal professionals who enjoyed a prestigious status under the old judicial examination system, and the deeply rooted perception toward the legal professions as a means of improving one’s social status. The law school system was originally designed to foster deeper understanding on humans and the society and general and align lawyers’ values with freedom, equality, and justice, thereby facilitating the provision of high quality legal services. However, in reality, this paradigm shift in legal training has not been successful, as education at law school turned into preparation courses for the national bar examination. Despite these issues, Korea desperately

needed to change how it trains and qualifies legal professionals and we believe that ‘fostering through education’ was the right direction to take. The resulting law school system provided Koreans with opportunities to depart from aspirations toward legal professions nearing worship, and create a society where the legal profession is regarded as what it is: a professional occupation like any other.

  The professional law school system has been uated from multiple angles over the last ten years, and the results were largely negative. However, as mentioned earlier, Korea has begun to see the positive effect of the law school system, including the qualitative and quantitative growth of the Korean legal service market, and the wider accessibility to legal professions. It took ten long years to achieve these minor changes. The system has been a half-success so far. However, we believe that a half success is not equal to a half failure, as the changes brought on by the new system are still in progress.

  With these in mind, in conclusion, we conclude the report with a number of policy considerations required to ensure that the positive effect of the law school system contributes to expanding and improving legal services aligned with the values of the democratic civil society.

  First, it should be clearly understood that the law school system was adopted for the purpose of reforming the premodern aspects of the Korean judicial system, so that the general public can feel closer to, and enjoy easier access to legal services. In other words, we need to keep in mind the fact that the system was adopted within the framework of the judicial reform for the people. Only then, Korea will be able to free itself from the remnants of the old national judicial examination and produce legal professionals capable of quality legal services satisfying the needs and expectations of the Korean public.

  Second, in order to consolidate the paradigm shift envisioned by those advocating for the law school system, ‘fostering through education,’ Korea needs to reshape the national bar examination from a ‘selection’ process to supply lawyers to a ‘qualification’ process designed to train legal professionals capable of meeting the people’s needs through law school education.

  Lastly, to achieve the original goal of ‘fostering through education,’ the law schools should realign its ‘college of law’ identity focused on academic endeavors, and internalize the identity as a ‘professional training institute’ for legal professionals.