Being court-appointed attorney gains popularity
Published: 14 Dec. 2009, 21:26
According to the Office of Court Administration yesterday, 277 acting lawyers and prospective legal professionals applied for the 17 court-appointed lawyer posts for 2010. The soon-to-be professionals have passed the bar exam and will complete training at the Judicial Research and Training Institute in February. The office said it’s the largest number of applicants since Korea introduced the court-appointed attorney system in 2004.
Court-appointed lawyers are employed by the government to handle cases where defendants can’t afford legal representation. In the past, private lawyers doubled as court-appointed counsels. But to improve the quality of legal service, Korea decided to form a separate group of appointed attorneys starting in 2004. The popularity of the position first shot up in January. For 39 positions available, there were 178 applicants.
The government has offered incentives to attract top talent. The monthly salary is 8 million won ($6,860), on par with that for a position at a mid-sized law firm. And since last year, court-appointed lawyers have each been provided with their own office and 500,000 won per month to cover operating expenses.
Lee Young-hoon of the administration office said, “We wanted to seek lawyers and prospective lawyers who can offer top quality legal service to match any private attorneys.”
Successful applicants will be notified in early January. The 17 freshly-appointed representatives will then join their 120 predecessors in March. Court-appointed lawyers start out on a two-year contract, but most are re-signed. About a quarter of all defendants last year used court-appointed lawyers. In 2005, the figure was slightly over 20 percent.
By Choe Sun-uk [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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