By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
The bill on the creation of law schools, which was pending for two years, passed Tuesday at the National Assembly, but further complications in fine-tuning the plan are inevitable.
Most civic groups and academic circles welcomed passage of the bill, which is expected to provide citizens access to better legal services.
``Now we can expect better legal services from more trained and educated lawyers,’’ said Lee Ki-su, professor of Korea University and the president of the Korea Law Professors Association.
It is also a necessary step to prepare for competition with international legal service providers after the nation’s free trade agreement with the United States and with European countries in the near future, he said.
However, the biggest problem is still unsolved, mainly the decision of which universities will open a law school and how many students can be enrolled.
Since the government first proposed the establishment of law schools in October 2005, about 40 universities nationwide have prepared applications to open law schools. It is estimated that they have spent a total of 200 billion won in preparation.
Experts say the decision to choose qualified universities is not simple as the balance between national and private universities in different regions should be taken into consideration.
``The competition is fierce to win the approval to open a law school,’’ Kim Sang-young, dean of law college at Pusan National University, said. ``It’s not a simple issue because you should think of equal opportunity for universities in Seoul and other regions and balance between private and national universities.’’
Kim expected that about 20 universities will open a law school and demanded the government come up with screening criteria for the selection of qualified universities.
The government will establish enforcement ordinances and develop a system for a Legal Education Eligibility Test in time for the launch of law schools in March 2009.
The detailed guidelines will be fine-tuned through discussions by a law school education committee consisting of law professors, government's agencies, and judicial circles and citizens, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development said Wednesday.
Discussion on the number of law school students is also needed as there are different views from civic, academic and lawyers’ groups.
Many civic groups and universities claim that 3,000 students can be enrolled annually but the Korean Bar Association argued the number should be around 1,000 annually.
The education authority plans to finalize the detailed outlines soon and hold the first official test in August next year to allow students to start the first spring semester in 2009.