Under the Lee Jae-myung administration, a change is being detected in large law firms' hiring climate. Law firms are scarcely hiring prosecutors and are competitively bringing in antitrust and labor experts. In the legal community, there is analysis that this relates to the current administration reducing the prosecution's powers while bolstering the Fair Trade Commission and the Ministry of Employment and Labor.
According to the legal community on the 11th, since the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration, three large law firms have each recruited one former high-ranking prosecution official. Lee & Ko said it hired Kim Hu-gon (25th Judicial Research and Training Institute), former chief prosecutor of the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office; Yulchon said it hired Cho Nam-kwan (24th class), former Deputy Prosecutor General of the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office; and Sejong said it hired Jang Young-su (24th class), former chief prosecutor of the Daegu High Prosecutors' Office.
People in the legal community say that "compared with previous years, prosecutor hiring has dropped sharply." Every year, after the Ministry of Justice conducts regular personnel reshuffles for prosecutor generals and deputy and division chief prosecutors, some prosecutors assigned to so-called backwater posts would resign. Prosecutor generals cannot join large law firms for three years after retirement. As a result, major firms focused on hiring newly retired division chief prosecutors and line prosecutors and heavily promoted those hires.
After Lee Jae-myung took office, the Ministry of Justice conducted personnel appointments for prosecutor generals and deputy and division chief prosecutors in July–August, and resignations by prosecutors followed. However, there has been only one case of a large firm hiring a deputy prosecutor general, and there is no news of any firm hiring a division chief prosecutor. Most recently retired prosecutors are known to have opened solo practices or joined small and mid-sized law firms. A representative at a large law firm said, "We have no plans to make additional hires this year of those who served as deputy or division chief prosecutors."
It is not that large law firms have reduced hiring of former officials and outside experts across the board. Those from the Fair Trade Commission, antitrust specialist attorneys, and professors are still in demand. Under the current administration, Kim & Chang (Kim & Chang) hired Kim Jae-shin, former vice chair of the Fair Trade Commission, followed by Sejong hiring Ji Cheol-ho, former vice chair of the Fair Trade Commission, Lee In-ho, professor emeritus of economics at Seoul National University, and Kim Ki-su, former secretary to the Fair Trade Commission. Lee & Ko brought in Lee Sung-kyu, former head of the FTC's cartel division, while Bae, Kim & Lee hired Shin Young-ho, former standing commissioner of the Fair Trade Commission, along with antitrust specialists attorney Oh Geum-seok and attorney Kim Chi-yeol.
Senior officials who served at the Ministry of Employment and Labor during the Moon Jae-in administration also settled into major law firms around the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration. Former Minister Ahn Kyung-duk went to Lee & Ko; former Vice Minister Park Hwa-jin went to Bae, Kim & Lee; and former Blue House job policy chief Lim Seo-jeong went to Bae, Kim & Lee. Kim Min-seok, a former vice minister of the Ministry of Employment and Labor under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, recently passed the Government Public Officials' Ethics Committee's employment review and will soon join Shin & Kim LLC.
In the legal community, there is an analysis that large law firms have quickly reflected President Lee Jae-myung's state management direction in their hiring. In line with Lee's pledge to reform the prosecution, the prosecutors' office will close next October, 78 years after its founding. The government plans to eliminate or drastically reduce the prosecution's investigative powers and have it handle only indictments and the maintenance of prosecutions. A managing attorney at another major firm said, "With the prosecutors-turned-attorneys we have already hired, we can handle criminal cases sufficiently."
By contrast, the Fair Trade Commission is being given more weight than under the previous administration, with President Lee instructing it to increase staff. Joo Byung-gi, who took office as FTC chair last month, had pointed out the problems of chaebol while serving as a professor at Seoul National University, prompting predictions that the commission will launch a sweeping investigation into corporations' unfair transactions. The Ministry of Employment and Labor is also a government ministry whose value has risen as President Lee declared "a war on industrial accidents."