The former Roh Moo-hyun government abolished the judicial exam system and instead, introduced the American-style law school system in an effort to prevent a great many young people from becoming the so-called judicial exam vagabonds, while shifting th...
The former Roh Moo-hyun government abolished the judicial exam system and instead, introduced the American-style law school system in an effort to prevent a great many young people from becoming the so-called judicial exam vagabonds, while shifting the paradigm from selecting the jurists to bringing up them and thereby, training the diverse professionals to be jurists to improve the legal services for the people and bringing up much more lawyers to lower the barriers for the legal services.
Nevertheless, the current law school system that our nation has introduced and operated is mass-producing the LEET vegabonds (a Law Science Adaptability Test), bar exam vagabonds and five consecutive bar exam failures (those who have failed to pass the bar exam 5 times and thus, cannot afford to sit for the bar exam more). Moreover, because the entrance quota for the law schools is limited to 2 thousands and the absolute majority of the law school students are in their 20’s who have just graduated from colleges, being far distant from the professionals in diverse areas, those professionals in diverse areas could not even afford to enter the law schools.
The judicial exam system which had been operated before the introduction of the law school system produced about 1,000 lawyers every year, and now, the current law school system only brings up about 1,700 lawyers every year. Only 700 more lawyers have been increased every year, the lawyer’s fee has not yet to be lowered and people can not select quality lawyers at a lower cost to be more satisfied with their law services. In short, the intention of the current law school system that was introduced against the strong public opposition is overshadowed.
Moreover, there was no doubt about fair process of selecting judges, public prosecutors and lawyers under the judicial exam system that functioned well as a ladder for a better social status. Namely, some people who had only graduated from middle or high school passed the exam at rare intervals. It is well known that the former President who had only graduated from a high school passed the judicial exam and thereafter, would be active as a human right lawyer and finally would be elected President. Thus, under the past
judicial exam system, those who had not completed the 4-year college course and the 3-year graduate course could become lawyers or judicial officers if they had worked hard, which comforted the ordinary people much.
Under the current law school system, the educational discrimination still subsists, while a considerable level of costs should be paid for 7-year-long college & graduate school education, and possibly for 5 more years to pass the bar exam. Moreover, those who cannot pass the bar exam despite their 5-time trials should only remain the nominal judicial master degree holders, being blocked from being jurists, which is quite severe for them.
So far, the law school system has not achieved any of its goals and also has caused new problems such as dispute over its fairness. Moreover, the system is judged to infringe on people’s rights to pursue happiness and select the jobs, and therefore, now is the time when it should be reformed in overall terms.
Accordingly, this study addresses the problems and situations of our law school system, and thereby, analyzes the foreign systems of selecting and training the jurists comparatively, and thereupon, explores the reform measures for our system of selecting and training the jurists.