로스쿨에서의 실무교육

Teaching Like a Law School in Korea: with special remarks on educating law firms affiliated with law schools

Since the end of the last century, "acting like a lawyer" has been a representative goal of education in the U.S. law school system, for which training legal skills such as of communication, writing, negotiation, etc., should constitute the main part of the curricula of the law schools. The Korean law school system which has been introduced as a new education system of legal profession are increasingly facing same demands as the case of the U.S: in these days it is compelling demands in lawyers society that legal skills and professional abilities of legal practice should be taught in law school. But, what makes a significant difference from that of the U.S. is that there is no concrete and clear contents on such skills and abilities in Korean lawyers and legal scholars society, which causes serious confusion in designing and specifing law school curricula. This note tries to make some indication how and what the law school students can learn for their future job as lawyers. The best way of the learing must be provided through clinical classes, and the clinical methods can be well pratices in the educating law firm affiliated the relevant law school. This note makes strong proposal to amend the Attorneys-at-Law Act so that any law school can establish its affiliated law firm and utilize it as the secondary educating facility.