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Bar association calls for annual limit on lawyer admissions

Published: 14 Apr. 2025, 17:14

Lawyers belonging to the Korean Bar Association hold a press conference in front of the government complex in Gwacheon to demand a reduction in the number of lawyers on April 14. [YONHAP]

The Korean Bar Association (KBA) held a rally in front of the government complex in Gwacheon, home to the Ministry of Justice, on Monday, calling for the annual number of newly licensed lawyers to be reduced to around 1,200.

“We strongly urge the government to limit the supply of new lawyers to an appropriate scale so that lawyers, as one of the pillars of the national judicial system, can properly fulfill their roles,” said KBA President Kim Jung-wook.

An average of about 1,700 new lawyers have passed the bar exam each year over the past five years, according to the KBA. When the law school system was introduced in 2009, there were about 10,000 lawyers in Korea. That figure surpassed 30,000 last year.

“Japan has a legal system similar to Korea, but compared to Japan, Korea has about twice as many lawyers relative to its population, and about six times as many licensed legal professionals in adjacent fields such as judicial scriveners, tax accountants and patent attorneys,” said Kim. “Our country has more lawyers per capita and more related licenses competing fiercely in the limited legal market.”

Kim argued that “excessive competition for clients has commercialized a legal market that should serve the public interest,” adding, “this has led to an increase in client complaints and disciplinary actions against lawyers.”

“The deterioration of legal service quality ultimately harms the public and deepens distrust in the judicial system,” Kim argued.

Lawyers belonging to the Korean Bar Association hold a press conference in front of the government comple in Gwacheon to demand a reduction in the number of lawyers on April 14. [YONHAP]

Kim further called for a dramatic overhaul of the current review system for determining the number of bar exam passers and said, “the appropriate number of new lawyers per year should be no more than about 1,200, even under generous assumptions.”

About 300 people, including Kim, Seoul Bar Association President Cho Soon-yeol, executives from both organizations and individual lawyers, participated in the rally, according to organizers.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.

BY JEONG JAE-HONG [[email protected]]