Korean Bar Association: "Stop Extending the Vacancy-Filling System That Has Lost Its Rationale"

Calls for Withdrawal of Plan to Extend Law School Vacancy-Filling System by Three Years

Korean Bar Association

The Korean Bar Association opposed the Ministry of Education's plan to extend the law school vacancy-filling system again and called for the proposed amendment to be withdrawn.

In a statement on November 4, the association said, "It has long been the case that the original rationale for introducing the system—to help law schools become established in their early years—no longer applies. Repeatedly extending the vacancy-filling system solely to shore up university finances can no longer be justified." It also urged the Ministry of Education to abolish the system and develop measures to normalize academic policies, including transfers and readmission.

The vacancy-filling system allows law schools to fill vacant places by admitting additional students beyond their enrollment quotas. It was initially intended to apply only to the 2010-2013 academic years, to address financial pressures on law schools in their early years and student departures while the bar examination and the former judicial examination coexisted. It has since been extended five times. If the proposed amendment is finalized, this would be the sixth extension.

The proposed amendment, announced by the Ministry of Education for public comment on October 26, would extend the system's validity period from the 2026 academic year through the admissions process for the 2029 academic year, a period of three years. It would lower the cap on additional admissions from 10% to 7% of each school's enrollment quota. Universities with quotas of 50 or fewer students would be allowed to admit one additional student.

The association said, "Maintaining a temporary exception for 20 years and effectively making it permanent undermines the purpose for which it was originally introduced." It argued that the circumstances in the law schools' early years could no longer justify an extension, since law schools have become the central institutions for training legal professionals and none have closed due to operational difficulties. The association also said the system was merely a way to offset tuition revenue lost due to vacancies by admitting additional students.

The association also criticized the transfer system for having become nominal. The Act on the Establishment and Operation of Law Schools explicitly allows students to transfer. However, the association argued that transfers had effectively become obsolete because schools could fill vacancies by admitting additional students beyond their quotas. It said students seeking to transfer to another school were left having to retake the Law School Admission Test and go through the admissions process again, while also paying an additional year's tuition. It added that even law schools with low bar examination pass rates could settle for the easier option of filling vacancies rather than improving the quality of education.

The association also pointed to changes in the supply-and-demand environment for legal professionals. It said the annual number of people passing the bar qualification examination relative to the population is nearly three times Japan's, while the number of newly registered lawyers is around five times as high. It also said that the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the hiring environment and reducing employment opportunities for young lawyers.

Meanwhile, concerns about repeated extensions have also been raised within the government. The Ministry of Justice opposed another extension in the first half of 2024. Later that year, the Ministry of Education also acknowledged problems with the extension-based approach and announced plans to form a task force (TF) to improve the system.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.