변화하는 법조의 세계 -한국의 경험을 중심으로-

Abstract

Korean society has been tremendously transformed from a war-torn,

predominantly agricultural state up to the 1960s into an industrialized and

globalized information society today. The Korean legal profession has undergone

transformation as well for the last few decades. The per capita national income

was around $100 and 60% of the population was in the agricultural sector in

the 1960s, but their figures are respectively around $10,000 and 10% in the

1990s and in the 2000s. There were around 400 to 700 practising lawyers

against the population of around 25 millions in the 1960s, but their number now

reached around 5,500 against the population of around 45 millions in the 2000s.

The prevailed patterns of practice that had ruled the legal profession up to the

mid-1980s were: once you passed the bar examination, you go to the compulsory

course for a lawyer at the government-run Judicial Research and Training

Institute (JRTI) for two years and then to practice after having acquired a few

years of practical experiences as a career judge or public prosecutor (a

governmental lawyer); solo practice was the norm; and their orientation was

litigation in typical civil and criminal cases. Now there have emerged

diversifications of practice such as emergence of legal specialists in other areas

of law (such as corporation, security, tax, environment, patent, and anti-trust law)

than ordinary civil and criminal law, blossoming of law firms and in-house

counsels, drafting and counselling along with advocacy, playing of a policymaking

role, and practice without a prior practical experience as a governmental

lawyer immediately after their education and training at the JRTI.