As of the end of each year, Growth Rate (Business Openings) = (Current Year - Previous Year) × 100 / Previous Year [Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] The Ministry of Justice will announce the successful candidates of the 10th Bar Examination on the 21st.
Amid sharply opposing views between lawyer organizations, which argue that the number of successful candidates should be reduced to 1,200 or fewer, and law schools (hereinafter referred to as "Roschool"), which insist that the number should rather be increased, attention is focused on how many final successful candidates will be decided.
The Ministry of Justice will hold a meeting of the Bar Examination Management Committee at the Government Gwacheon Complex on the morning of the day to decide the successful candidates of the 10th Bar Examination.
The final number of successful candidates will be determined by Minister of Justice Park Beom-gye based on the deliberations of the Bar Examination Management Committee.
On the 14th, the Ministry of Justice announced that the originally scheduled announcement date of the 23rd would be moved up to the 21st, stating that unless there are special circumstances, the successful candidates would be announced immediately after the Bar Examination Management Committee's resolution. Considering the time needed to decide the final number of successful candidates and to organize the announcement materials after the meeting, the announcement is expected to be made in the afternoon of the same day.
Score confirmation will be available on the Ministry of Justice website from 2 p.m. on the 22nd.
When the Bar Examination was first held in 2012, the passing rate was set at 75% of the Roschool quota (2,000 students), resulting in 1,451 successful candidates.
However, since then, the number of successful candidates has increased annually as follows: 1,691 in the 8th Bar Examination in 2019, and 1,768 in the 9th Bar Examination last year.
▲ 1,451 (2012, 1st Bar Exam) ▲ 1,538 (2013, 2nd) ▲ 1,550 (2014, 3rd) ▲ 1,565 (2015, 4th) ▲ 1,581 (2016, 5th) ▲ 1,593 (2017, 6th) ▲ 1,599 (2018, 7th) ▲ 1,691 (2019, 8th) ▲ 1,768 (2020, 9th)
Lawyer organizations such as the Korean Bar Association and the National Council of Local Bar Associations argue that the domestic lawyer market has already reached saturation and that the number of successful candidates should be limited to 1,200 or fewer.
They point out that the number of registered lawyers in Korea has surpassed 30,000, reaching saturation, and although Roschool was introduced on the premise of consolidating similar professions, not only has consolidation not occurred, but similar professions have rather expanded, making it impossible to maintain the current number of successful candidates.
In particular, these organizations claim that if the current number of successful candidates is maintained, proper practical training for the successful candidates will be impossible, resulting in the production of underqualified lawyers, which will ultimately harm the public.
On the other hand, Roschool, law students, and Bar Examination candidates criticize these organizations' claims as "protecting their own interests" and argue that the number of successful candidates should rather be increased.
The Korean Association of Law Professors, composed of Roschool and law professors, emphasized on the 11th that "the recent number of successful candidates in the Bar Examination has become dangerously low to be called a qualification exam, and an expansion of successful candidates is urgently needed."
They argue that this deviates from the original purpose of making the Bar Examination a qualification exam when the Roschool system was introduced.
The Ministry of Justice stated at last year's announcement of successful candidates that to ensure predictability for examinees, the same criteria for determining successful candidates would be applied to the 10th Bar Examination.
At that time, the Ministry of Justice explained the criteria as follows: "In principle, the passing number is set at 75% or more of the enrollment quota (1,500 or more), but considering the number and pass rate of previous Bar Examinations, the purpose of introducing Roschool, changes in the number of examinees, supply and demand of legal professionals, academic management status, and grading results, as well as factors suggested by the subcommittee such as changes in population and economic scale and the number of legal professionals in major foreign countries, a total of 1,768 candidates with a total score of 900.29 points or higher were deliberated as successful candidates and recommended to the Minister of Justice."
Moreover, there is speculation that the number of successful candidates may increase this time because the administrative law essay question was treated as a perfect score for all candidates due to its similarity to a mock exam question from Yonsei University Roschool.
The Korean Bar Association will hold a rally at 10 a.m. today at the main gate of the Ministry of Justice at the Government Gwacheon Complex to raise awareness of the crisis in the legal market caused by the rapid increase in the number of lawyers and to convey a firm intention to reduce the number of successful candidates for the 10th Bar Examination to the Ministry of Justice.
Additionally, at 1:30 p.m. on the same day, a press conference will be held on the 14th floor of the Korean Bar Association building in Yeoksam-dong to explain the Bar Association's position on the number of successful candidates.
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