The Korean Association of Law Professors: "The Law School System Must Be Abolished and a New Bar Examination Introduced"

Law School (Photo by Asia Economy DB)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The Korean Association of Law Professors issued a statement on the 1st calling for the abolition of the poorly operated law school system and the reintroduction of the judicial examination.

The association argued, "The Korean Bar Association's Law School Evaluation Committee has acknowledged the failure of the system by evaluating 16 out of 25 law schools nationwide as below standard."

They continued, "Law schools have degraded professional legal studies as an academic discipline into technical legal studies that train technicians," criticizing, "A serious problem has emerged where even legal professionals deny the ability of law schools to provide legal services."

They emphasized, "A 'new judicial examination' should be introduced as a bypass to the law school system, allowing socially disadvantaged and marginalized groups who cannot enter law schools to also take the exam."

The association claimed, "By conducting two separate exams to select public judicial officers and private attorneys separately, judicial corruption caused by collusion between the two can be fundamentally eliminated."

They also stated, "It could also serve to provide an opportunity for law school graduates who ultimately fail the bar exam to take the exam again, thereby rescuing 'bar exam ronin'."

Previously, the Korean Bar Association's Law School Evaluation Committee evaluated law schools over five years from March 2017 to February 2022, and only nine schools received an 'accredited' rating. The remaining 16 schools received 'conditional accreditation' or 'temporary non-accreditation' ratings. The temporary non-accreditation rating appeared for the first time since the law school system was introduced in 2009.