The Korean Bar Association Will Open the Lawyer Training Program for 200 Trainees Only: Law School Students Protest, "They're Trying to Protect Their Share of the Pie"

[경향신문]

On the morning of April 21, a group of law school students and students preparing for the bar examination hold a demonstration in front of the government complex in Gwacheon. Participants demand the government to change the bar examination into one that grants people who pass the exam licenses. Yonhap News (April 21, 2021)

The Korean Bar Association reaffirmed its previous plan to restrict the number of trainees for a training program for new lawyers who passed the tenth bar examination to two hundred. A group of law school students criticized the announcement and said, “Law school students are being sacrificed so they can secure their share of the pie.”

On April 26, the Korean Bar Association distributed a press release and said, “As planned, we will set the number of trainees to a maximum of 200, and if the number of applicants exceeds this number, we will conduct the training after selecting the trainees through a random draw.” The Association said, “The restriction of 200 trainees was inevitable in order to provide quality legal services, which was the basic principle of establishing law schools.”

People who pass the bar must receive training from an agency engaging in legal affairs, such as the court, the Prosecution Service, and law firms for over six months according to the current Attorney-at-Law Act in order to open their own legal practices or to take on cases. The training by the Korean Bar Association was offered for those who passed the bar but failed to receive training from other relevant agencies. Last year 1,768 people passed the bar and among them 789 applied for the training program provided by the Bar Association.

Previously, the Korean Bar Association argued that the government should set the bar exam pass rate to allow some 1,200 people to pass the tenth bar exam and announced that it would restrict the size of its training program to 200 trainees. When the Ministry of Justice announced on April 22 that this year, it would set the pass rate to allow 1,706 people to pass the bar exam, the Bar Association protested the decision and argued, “The legal market cannot accept this.” If the Bar Association restricts the number of trainees, nearly 500 people who have passed the bar will not be able to work as lawyers.

The same day, the group of law school students released a statement and argued, “Look at the law school students who are falling victim to an attempt by lawyers who graduated from law schools and lawyers from the Judicial Research and Training Institute to secure their piece of the pie,” and added, “Behind the decision (to allow 1,706 people to pass the bar this year) is the Korean Bar Associations continuous and clever strategy to reduce the bar exam pass rate by sending three of its members to the committee that determines the pass rate.”

The law school students also said, “Ironically, the key members who are calling for the government to reduce the bar exam pass rate are lawyers who passed the first and second bar exams (when the pass rate was relatively high).” They argued, “They passed the bar easily, but those who followed are forced to study harder and still fail despite getting good grades.”

The group of law school students said, “There are too many law school students who suffer unfair treatment (due to the decision by the Korean Bar Association),” and added, “They (Bar Association) are not acting like a public organization.”