Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This is Young Hoon Kim, and I started my term as the 52nd President of the Korean Bar Association on February 27, 2023.

As stipulated in the Attorney-at-Law Act Article 1, the mission of a lawyer is to defend fundamental human rights and realize social justice, and to faithfully perform his or her duties and work to maintain social order and to improve the legal system in accordance with his or her mission.

To that extent, the public interest is a value that cannot be given up in the legal profession. We, the lawyers keep

thinking about the fundamental rights stipulated in the Constitution and the people who should enjoy those values every time we face various problems.

Currently, the lawyers are facing a great crisis from which they cannot step back.

While the lawyers work as guardians of people’s rights and interests silently fulfilling their duties in the legal market, private platform operators, whose sole goal is a profit, try to dominate the legal market based on their financial power. Moreover, media and politicians who do not understand this public nature of the legal market are defending them.

The legal market was originally a monopoly market for lawyers who are defined as ‘Seonbi’, and those profit-oriented merchants are not members of the market. However, the fact is that the private platform operators not only have participated into the legal market recklessly, but also attacked the KBA for opposing their entry.

I, as the president of the KBA, will continue to take strict measures against the private platform operators to protect the public nature of the legal market for the society.

Furthermore, I will endeavor to attain the job enlargement of legal industry.
I, as the Vice President of the 51st KBA Executive board, helped about 100 members to enter the debt collection market by arranging collective contract and providing education regarding credit investigation.

From now, as the President of the KBA, I will actively work on expanding the job range of the lawyers.

I will also seek for institutional measures to stabilize and expand the legal market by developing and distributing legal insurance.

Furthermore, I will look for the ways to merge various certified legal professions through the specialization and diversification of the law school system while caring for the members’ opinions and follow them.

I will resume the International exchanges, which have been shrunk due to the Covid-19, with the overseas bar associations and law societies, and actively promote the export of our legislation through the cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Government Legislation.

Finally, I promise that the Attorney-Client Privilege Legislation will be passed by the National Assembly, so that the lawyers will no longer be violated by the investigation agencies and will protect the people’s right to be assisted by attorney-at-law. Through the ACP, I will try to revise the legislation in accordance with the global standard, which allows investigation of lawyer’s office only in exceptional circumstances under reasonable control.

Rather a serious situation is ahead of us than the rosy future. We can make even a small change only if we unite harmoniously during this rough time.

I am more than ready to run at the forefront with a determined mind.

I ask for your strong support and participation during my term.

Thank you very much.

2023. 2. 27.

YOUNG HOON KIM
President
Korean Bar Association