The Korean Bar Association raised the issue of an oversupply of lawyers again and urged that the number of those who pass this year's bar exam be reduced to 1,500 or fewer. The association cited as grounds that the number of practicing lawyers now exceeds that of other licensed professionals and that market competition is fiercer.
According to data released by the association on the 21st, there are 32,168 practicing lawyers. That exceeds ▲ 19,059 certified public accountants ▲ 16,573 certified tax accountants ▲ 4,861 patent attorneys. The association also said that the practice rate relative to registrants is 84.1% for lawyers, higher than 67.6% for certified public accountants, 43.0% for patent attorneys, 19.9% for licensed real estate agents, and 2.3% for administrative agents.
The association argued that although Korea's legal market is smaller than Japan's, the inflow of new lawyers is much faster. According to the association, as of 2024, Korea's legal market is worth $14.6 billion, about one-third of Japan's $45 billion, but the number of newly registered lawyers per 1 million people in Korea is about five times that of Japan. The association said this structure is deepening declines in case intake and saturating the market.
The association argued that the lawyer market has already reached its limits. The average number of monthly cases handled fell from 6.97 in 2008 to 1.05 in 2022, and it said that now, for ordinary matters, it does not even reach one case per month.
The association also called on the Ministry of Justice to set the number of those who pass the 15th bar exam at 1,500 or fewer and to form a consultative body among the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education, and the association to discuss system reforms, including reducing law school enrollment caps.
The Ministry of Justice plans to convene the Bar Examination Management Committee on the 23rd to finalize deliberations on the size of the 15th bar exam pass list and to announce the successful candidates at around 5 p.m. the same day. According to the ministry's notice, the announcement time may vary depending on the committee's deliberation procedures. For last year's 14th bar exam, 1,744 people passed, and the pass rate was 52.27%.