By Cho Jae-hyon
Staff Reporter
A visually-handicapped man will enter the Judicial Research & Training Institute in early March, taking the first meaningful step in becoming the nation's first blind lawyer.
Choi Young, a 30-year-old graduate from Seoul National University, will join other colleagues entering the institute for two years of mandatory training on March 2, officials from the center said.
``I'm not sure as yet what I can do. But I will study hard to become a lawyer who can help the socially weak,'' Choi was quoted as saying by an official of the institute.
Choi was diagnosed with the degenerative disease Retinitis Pigmentosa in 1998 when he was a high school senior. He began to slowly lose his sight and became unable to read books in 2005. After failing the bar exam four times, he finally passed it in 2008, becoming the first visually-disabled person to pass the exam here.
But he was unable to join the institute in Ilsan-gu, Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province the next year as it was not equipped with the necessary facilities for the disabled.
``We needed time to construct facilities and prepare other things before admitting him, and he also needed preparations and self-training to take the course on his own,'' an institute official said.
Among the self-imposed training he underwent during the last year were moving around on his own with a cane, using public transport and studying through new devices for the blind.
The official said the institute has formed a task force to make the institute friendlier for Choi.
``It is the first time that the institute has accepted a visually-handicapped man. So we've made a lot of preparations and studied cases in other countries,'' the official said.
The institute said more than 170 million won has been spent to build guide blocks in the institute. It also asked Goyang City to build yellow guide blocks between a nearby subway station and the center.
At the same time, the institute will provide him with a notebook computer and other textbooks in computer files so that he can study through a screen-reader program that converts written words into voice files.
``We will continue to run the team to resolve all problems as there is the possibility that other visually-handicapped trainees will enter the institute in the future,'' the official said.