우리나라의 변호사 조직에 대한 법적 규율

손창완 ( Chang Wan Sohn ) 연세대학교 법학연구원 2009 法學硏究 Vol.19 No.1

Attorney at law is a profession who holds position as a service-provider offering legal services in the legal-service market. Attorney at law may establish a law firm with other attorneys at law in order to provide legal service effectively. In the early 1990s still, the most common type of law firms were mainly small law offices. Whereas Korean lawsuits occurring from various areas have gotten more intricate as Korean economy grows and the state of affairs in Korean society becomes more complicated. Thus, those small law offices were no longer in capable of handling complicated legal cases. On the contrary, consumers of legal services were starting to demand general legal services and their tendency toward expectations for higher quality in legal services grew. Consequently from the late 1990s in order to provide overall and thorough legal services a group of lawyers began to form a law corporation or a joint law offices. A discussion as to these law firms would be first of all, about what types of firms are admissible for attorneys at law to perform legal practices jointly. Generally there are Lawyers` Act which regulates attorneys at law. It allows law office, law corporation, limited liability law corporation and limited liability law partnership as an organization for attorneys. The question would rise, however, whether attorneys at law may form different types of organizations other than listed above such as the corporation or partnership by provision under Korean Civil code and Commercial code. Secondly, the Lawyers` Act has some special regulations that only apply to law corporations, limited liability law corporation and limited liability law partnership that are different from the corporations or partnerships under provisions of the Civil and Commercial code. Therefore, there is a need to look over these differences in regulations as well. Furthermore, as the number of those organizations are increasing recently, there is a rising need toward the legal rulings against law firms` internal relations between partners along with external relations between partners and third parties(including clients) to be established concretely. So in this article, 1) What kind of law firms are admissible 2) details of regulations over law firms according to the Lawyers` Act will be mainly discussed.

연구논문 : 법무법인의 법적 형태에 관한 고찰 -미국 LLP도입 방안을 중심으로-

김희철 ( Hee Cheol Kim ) 단국대학교 법학연구소 2014 법학논총 Vol.38 No.2

Law firms are supposed to be organized in various ways, depending on the number of member attorneys. The Attorney Law of Republic of Korea, however, do not allows law firm to be organized as Limited Liability Partnership. The most popular law firm in Korea is the general partnership style law firm, in which all the attorneys who are members of the firm share ownership, profits and liabilities. The author insists that the Limited liability partnership(“LLP”), in which the attorney-owners are partners with one another, but no partner is liable to any creditor of the law firm nor is any partner liable for any negligence on the part of any other partner, is the most suitable organizational form for the law firm. Also, in an LLP, one partner is not responsible or liable for another partner’s misconduct or negligence. This is an important difference from the Korean general partnership style law firm, in which each partner has joint and several liability. Introducing the United States’ LLP history and current laws, the author suggests the better legal form for Korean law firm.

변호사법상 공직퇴임변호사의 사건수임에 관한 고찰

정형근 대한변호사협회 2020 人權과 正義 : 大韓辯護士協會誌 Vol. No.

Attorney-at-law Article 31 paragraph 3 as shown below states “Restriction on Acceptance of Case” for attorney-at-law retired from public office. No person who commences a legal practice after working as a judge, a prosecutor, a long-term military judicial officer or a public official (excluding any law clerk, any judicial trainee and anyone who has served as a soldier or public-service judge advocate, etc. in order to fulfill his/her duty of military service) (hereinafter referred to as “attorney-at-law retired from public office”) shall accept cases handled by the state agency in which he/she has worked from the point of time one year before his/her retirement till his/her retirement, such as a court, prosecutors’ office, military court, Financial Services Commission, Fair Trade Commission and a police office (the Supreme Court, high courts, district courts and branch offices of district courts as well as the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, high prosecutors’ offices and district prosecutors’ offices and branch offices of district prosecutors’ offices under Article 3 (1) and (2) of the Prosecutors’ Office Act which have been established in correspondence thereto shall be deemed the same state agency, respectively) for one year from the date on which he/she retired from office: Provided, That the same shall not apply to the acceptance of cases for the public interest, such as public defense, and cases in which a party to a case is his/her relative referred to in Article 767 of the Civil Act. Unacceptable cases pursuant to paragraph (3) shall include the followings: Cases where an attorney-at-law who retired from public office is designated as an attorney-at-law in charge of a law firm, limited liability law firm, law firm partnership, or joint venture law firm as defined in subparagraph 9 of Article 2 of the Foreign Legal Consultant Act (hereafter referred to as “law firm, etc.” in this Article); Cases where an attorney-at-law who retired from public office actually accepts cases by actually handling cases under a name borrowed from another attorney-at-law, or law firm, etc.; In cases of law firms, etc., cases where an attorney-at-law who retired from public office receives attorney fees by actually getting involved in the acceptance or performance of cases even though he/she is not indicated as an attorney-at-law in charge in the case retainer agreements, litigation documents, attorney’s statement of opinion, etc. 변호사법은 전관예우를 규제하려고 공직퇴임변호사의 수임제한과 수임자료 등의 제출 제도를 두고 있다. 판사, 검사 등의 공무원직에 있다가 퇴직한 변호사는 퇴직한 날부터 1년 동안 재직하였던 국가기관이 처리하는 사건을 수임할 수 없다. 그러나 국가기관에서 퇴직한 공무원이라고 한정하고 있어 지방자치단체나 공공기관에서 퇴직한 자는 포함되지 않는 문제가 있다. 변호사법에서 공직퇴임변호사는 법원이나 검찰청에서 퇴직한 공무원을 염두에 두고 있기 때문이다. 수임제한 대상 기관 역시 퇴직한 기관과 그에 대응한 기관에 한정하고 있어 그 범위가 매우 협소하다. 수임제한 기간의 기산일은 퇴직한 날부터 1년 동안이다. 만약 퇴직 후에 곧바로 변호사 개업을 하지 않고 지내다가 1년이 경과한 다음에 개업을 한다면 수임제한 규제를 받지 않는다. 그러므로 공직퇴임변호사가 퇴직하여 변호사 개업한 날부터 1년이라고 해야 한다. 수임제한 기간 1년은 동일한 국가기관에서 재직하였던 직연이라는 연고관계를 단절하기에는 매우 짧다. 그 때문에 퇴직한 날부터 3년 동안으로 연장해야 할 필요가 제기된다. 그리고 공직퇴임변호사는 수임자료 및 처리결과를 제출하여야 한다. 수임자료 등을 제출받은 법조윤리협의회는 수임사건 처리에 전관예우가 있었는지, 법조윤리 위반사실이 있었는지 여부를 판단하게 된다. 이런 수임자료 등의 제출의무는 공직에서 퇴직일부터 2년 동안 수임한 사건에 한정하여 인정된다. 변호사법은 공직에서 퇴직한 자가 바로 변호사 개업을 할 것으로 보기 때문에 퇴직일부터 2년 동안이라고 한다. 그러나 대법관처럼 고위직에 있다가 퇴직 직후 개업하는 것에 대한 우려의 목소리도 높기에 대학의 석좌교수 등으로 지내다가 비로소 개업을 한다. 이때는 퇴직일부터 2년이 경과하여 그때부터는 수임제한도 받지 않을 뿐만 아니라 수임자료 등의 제출의무도 없게 된다. 그러므로 퇴직일부터 2년 동안을 변호사 개업일부터 2년 동안이라고 해야 한다. 이런 문제점을 인식한 변호사법 시행령에는 변호사법과는 달리 ‘변호사 개업’이라고 명시하고 있다. 아울러 수임자료 등에는 수임액의 기재가 되어야 하고, 자문사건 역시 포함되어야 할 필요가 크다.

법무시장개방과 조세

안경봉(Ahn Kyeong-Bong) 한국국제조세협회 2007 조세학술논집 Vol.23 No.2

My suggestion about tax issue regarding to liberalization of trade in legal services, can be summarized as follows: First, when partnership tax regime will be introduced into tax law, it needs to be applied to the law firms, law firms with limited liability and law firms association. Second, when any law firm reorganize itself into a law firm association, it is necessary to reduce or exempt from corporate tax on liquidation income. Third, in applying tax convention to foreign law firms assuming the form of partnerships, it is necessary to apply it depending upon whether the resident country of foreign law firms tax on its income or not.