Attorneys with the Korean Bar Association on the 6th urged a reduction in the number of new lawyers. They argued that lawyers are already oversupplied and that, with population decline and the spread of artificial intelligence (AI), demand for lawyers will fall, so the number of new lawyers should be cut.
About 400 lawyers (per organizers' estimate) attended a "rally to reduce the number of new lawyers" held at 11 a.m. in front of the Government Complex Gwacheon, where the Ministry of Justice is located. They held a banner reading "Immediately stop the indiscriminate mass production of lawyers that increases harm to the public," and chanted slogans including "When the legal market collapses, the damage comes back to the public" and "Wild pass-party for lawyers means a tears-party for lawyers."
Kim Jeong-uk (2nd bar exam) president of the Korean Bar Association said, "Japan has 49,000 lawyers, and Japan's legal market is three times the size of Korea's," adding, "Per capita, the number of newly registered lawyers in Korea is four to six times that of Japan."
He went on, "The number of quasi-legal professions in Korea exceeds 600,000, the largest scale in the world," adding, "It is an unprecedented legal workforce selection system that double-produces lawyers and quasi-legal professions."
Kim said, "When the market could not absorb new certified public accountants, the government cut the minimum number selected for two consecutive years," adding, "The Ministry of Justice should correct the distorted supply-and-demand structure even now."
Jo Sun-yeol (33rd Judicial Research and Training Institute class), president of the Seoul Bar Association, said, "When introducing law schools, the government promised to consolidate quasi-legal professions and have lawyers take over, and to increase the number of new lawyers from 1,000 to 1,500 a year," adding, "Quasi-legal professions have instead increased, and the number of new lawyers has been raised to 1,750."
Chae Yong-hyeon (4th bar exam), president of the Korea Legal Professionals Association, said, "The government decides nothing, telling us to ask the law schools, and law school professors make a bullheaded claim that the number of lawyers should just be increased," adding, "Meanwhile, only lawyers are struggling to get by day to day."
The Korean Bar Association issued a statement calling for three measures: ▲ immediately set this year's bar exam passers at 1,500 or fewer ▲ gradually reduce annual bar exam passers to 1,000 or fewer ▲ and announce lawyer selection quotas in advance.
When the government administered the national judicial exam, about 1,000 new lawyers were produced each year. In 2012, 1,451 first-time lawyers from law schools were produced, and since then about 1,700 new lawyers have been produced annually. Before the introduction of law schools, the number of lawyers was about 10,000, but it is now about 38,000. According to the Korean Bar Association, the average number of monthly cases per lawyer was 6.97 in 2008, but is now below 1.0.
In a survey conducted by the Korean Bar Association of 2,521 members from Feb. 13 to March 6, 75.9% (1,914 respondents) answered that the number of bar exam passers is "greatly excessive." In response to a question on the appropriate scale of new lawyers, "1,000 or fewer" was the most frequent at 39.5% (996 people), followed by 500 or fewer at 24% (606 people), and 700 or fewer at 20.6% (528 people).