Law School Graduates Given Time Limit for Exam Passage
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The government has set a five-year time limit for U.S.-style law school graduates to become practitioners. They also will not be able to apply to take the qualifying examination more than three times during the period, the Ministry of Justice said Friday.
A total of 25 universities ― 15 in Seoul and 10 in other regions ― will open post-graduate law schools next year.
From 2017, only graduates from the law schools can apply for the examination to become legal practitioners. The current bar exam system will continue until 2016.
The government said such restrictive conditions also exist in Japan, Germany and most of the United States, all of which operate the law school system.
Under the plans, the ministry will gradually reduce the number of lawyers through the decades-old state bar exam from 1,000 to 800 in 2011 and down to 700 in 2012.
``These restrictions are intended to prevent the waste of human resources and the expected fall of test pass rates presented by the accumulation of applications,’’ the ministry said.