법의 세계화와 영미 로펌의 세계 지배 -독일 사례를 중심으로-

Abstract

Opening the legal market is on the way. Korea is supposed to open its

door to foreign lawyers by the end of 2004. However the extent of market

access for foreign law firms is yet to be decide. At issues are (1) whether

foreign lawyer may practise local laws, (2) whether the domestic branch of

international law firms may use their mother firm's name, and (3) whether

foreign lawyer may be partners with local lawyers or hire them. International

law firms are asking to open the market to the full. Some clients of domestic

law firms agrees with them on the ground that no barriers are necessary so

long as they are of help to enhance the competitiveness of Korean companies.

However, Korean lawyers argue that sudden liberalization could be costly.

In this paper, I reviewed the world legal market to propose a best way to

handle this controversy. First, I studied how and why mega law firms which

govern the world legal market are born in the age of globalization. Second, I

reviewed the experience of Germany's opening its legal market as I believed

the German case means something to Korea. Korean legal system is similar to

Germany's and Germany has been active to open the market to foreign

lawyers. Therefore, we can conjecture the figure of our legal system after

liberalization by comparing the present and past of German legal market.

German legal market is plunged into a turmoil after liberalization. There

were two waves of mergers in the past 15 years. It was not until 1989 that

German law firms were allowed to have more than one office in the whole

country. The first wave of mergers swept in early 1990s after the rule was

relaxed. Big firms came after the national mergers. The second wave of...