hankyoreh

"We once turned to Kim & Chang for a case and received a five-page opinion on the matter. Then later, we were shocked to receive a 20 million won (US$20,000) bill. In other law firms, it would have cost 2 million to 5 million won at the most," said a legal officer with a big conglomerate firm. "It seems they charge almost half a million won per hour. The rate is more expensive than [that of top law firms] in Singapore or Hong Kong," said another official of a foreign company in Seoul.

Kim & Chang’s legal counseling fee is the top one in Korea, far outstripping all other domestic law firms. In the case of former SK chairman Chey Tae-won’s accounting fraud case, Kim & Chang is said to have received 3 billion won just for the first trial.

In a nationwide illegal political fund scandal investigation, Kim & Chang charged each company involved 3 to 5 billion won, and collected much more for its legal role in the Hyundai Motor Company slush fund scandal.

A legal team officer of a major company said, "A few years ago, we asked Kim & Chang for a quote on a legal case involving the chairman of our company. They asked for 3 billion won. In other law firms, it would have normally cost 50 million to 100 million won, or at the most, three to four times those figures. But Kim & Chang’s fee surpassed all those levels."

In 1997, Kim & Chang received 2.8 billion won for 16 cases of company settlements and reorganization, commissioned by Kia Group. It created an overcharge dispute that later subjected the law firm to disciplinary review from the Ethics Committee of the Korean Bar Association. However, it did not incur any penalty in the end because the ethics committee members could not reach an agreement. To this, Kim & Chang said, "It was not an overcharge. We had to look into all of Kia’s 28 subsidiaries by mobilizing a large number of lawyers over an extended period of time."

Kim & Chang’s lawyers receive top-level salaries in Korea. According to the National Health Insurance Corporation, as of June 2005, among the 150 lawyers with annual income over 609.6 million won, 114, or 76 percent, work for Kim & Chang.