[Editorial] Bigger Quotas Needed at New 'Law Schools'

The Presidential Commission on Judicial Reform's plan about "law schools," outlined at a public hearing on Friday, was very disappointing. It does nothing to promote the original goals of creating law schools, namely increasing the quality of the country's legal professionals and increase the number of lawyers so as to keep up with demand for access to legal services. The commission's proposal is far more a representation of the voices of judges and prosecutors, lawyers, and law professors than the voice of the people.

The biggest problem is the question of entrance quotas. The commission made no specific mention of what the overall quota should be for 2008, when the law schools would get started, but it said it should be based on the number of persons taking the state bar examination. That seems to mean the system should adopt the majority proposal of the Supreme Court's Judicial Reform Committee and set the number at 1,200. In other words, maintain the yearly output of new lawyers at just about the current level until 2010.

If the total quota is going to be 1,200 then allowing more than 10 law schools is going to be difficult. That would make competition between schools also difficult. Becoming a lawyer will be easy once you get in and since you'll have socioeconomic status as a result, the intense competition will be over getting admitted. That will likely do nothing more than just turn the law school entrance test into a sort of bar exam. It would also not be right to have the overall quota determined by having the Minister of Education and Human Resources Development discuss it with the Supreme Court's Court Administration Office, the Justice Minister, the head of the Korean Bar Association, and the president of the Korean Law Professors' Association. At least half of the people determining the quota should be "public interest" representatives who see things from the people's point of view.

Since lawyers are not public servants there is of course no reason to control their numbers. How many there are should be determined according to what the people's demands are for access to legal services, though that should be seen as temporary, so as to prevent chaos in the wake of the introduction of the "law schools." So while the quota should be increased significantly, once that criteria is satisfied and the period of transition is over any university that wants to should be able to establish professional graduate schools of law.

The Hankyoreh, 23 April 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]