hankyoreh

By Kim Kyung-uk, staff reporter

One out of every three graduates of South Korean law schools is unable to get a job, and only four out of ten graduates are finding work in the legal profession, government statistics show.

The figures were acquired from the Ministry of Education on Sept. 28 by Kim Jin-tae, Saenuri Party (NFP) lawmaker and a member of the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The government figures reveal that only 42%, or less than half, of this year’s graduates from law school found work in the legal profession. Students from Kyung Hee University had the best chance of getting into the field, but their rate was still only 60%.

There were only three other law schools in which more than half of graduates got jobs in the field - Busan University (52.5%), Chung-Ang University (52.0%), and Inha University (50.0%). Even at Seoul National University, the country’s most prestigious school, less than half of students (48%), got jobs in the area.

The university at which graduates had the worst chance of becoming a lawyer was Jeju National University (27.5%), followed by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (28.0%), Hanyang University (31.0%), Korea University (33.3%), and Yonsei University (34.2%).

The statistics showed that many law school graduates had trouble finding a job at all, let alone in their field, with an average of 66.3% managing to get hired. The university with the best record was Chung-Ang University (84.0%), trailed by Kyung Hee University (80.0%), Inha University (78.0%), Sogang University (77.5%), and Seoul National University (76.7%).

The university at which the fewest graduates found work was Jeju National University (50.5%). Other law schools at which barely half of students were hired were Dong-a University (52.5%), Chonnam National University (54.2%), Kyungpook National University (57.5%), and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (58.0%).

“The tuition for three years of law school is 100 million won (US$94,736), which has led some people to call them ‘money schools’ instead. This makes it a big problem that so few graduates are being hired,” Kim said.

“The law schools were set up with the objective of eliminating ‘bar exam bums,’ but now they are just producing ‘law school losers.’ We need to move quickly to come up with a solution.” In the past, people hoping to becoming judges or lawyers would spend years preparing, oftentimes unsuccessfully, for the difficult Korean bar exam.

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