Agreement

 for bar exam maintenance 1

 Jin-Kyeong Yeo

 Sophomore, School of Business

 The law school system is too controversial to replace the bar exam

 On December 3, 2015, the Ministry of Justice announced that it would suspend the abolition of the bar exam until 2021. Many students in law schools opposed the Ministry of Justice's decision. There is a deadly (really? Don’t you mean serious?) conflict between supporters and opponents of the abolition of the bar exam.

 I disagree with the abolition of the bar exam. If it is abolished, lawyers will be selected only by the the law school system. The system educates lawyers and was introduced to solve the problems of associated with bar exams like rankism and academic factionalism. However, the law school is controversial because of very expensive tuition fees and the privilege of admissions and graduation.

 We must not judge people by their educational, class, or family backgrounds. However, if the bar exam is abolished, people who have good backgrounds will have the advantage in becoming a lawyer. It is completely unfair. Everyone is equal before the law and a lawyer is a person who is involved in the work related to the law. Therefore, there should not be any controversy with regard to the selection of lawyers.

 Law school was introduced to solve the problems of the bar exam, but it is too controversial to replace it.

Jeong-Hyun Cha

Sophomore, Department of English Language and Literature

 I insist that the bar exam should not be abolished

 At this point, taking the bar exam and entering law schools are the only ways to go into law. To take the bar exam, a person has to finish 35 credits of law subjects and is limited if he or she has criminal records. Satisfying those conditions, anyone who passes the exam can be in a legal profession no matter how much money he or she has. However, studying in a law school demands a huge amount of money and this will limit people who really want to be a judge, prosecutor, or a lawyer but do not have enough money to pay for their training. This means only wealthy students are able to enter law schools and only they can go into the law. It is obviously unfair for people who are willing to be in the legal profession.

 Also, the fairness of law schools is assured. When entering law schools, students have to take a test called LEET (Legal Education Eligibility Test). In America, the score, sex, even race of the successful applicants are revealed. However in Korea, the scores of this test are not revealed to people. This obviously shows the possibility of corruption on this test.

Based on these reasons I strongly disagree with the abolishment of the bar exam.

Disagreement

for bar exam maintenance 2

Yu-Seon Seol

Senior, Faculty of Liberal Arts

 Reversal of the Appointment

 You know that the government has decided to extend postponement of the bar exam. Because of this decision, many law school students feel a sense of betrayal toward the government and experience confusion about their futures. Also, this decision causes disputes within legal circles. In this context, we must remember the fact that the government appoints that the abolition of the bar exam will be implemented from 2017. However, this appointment was reversed due to postponement of the bar exam by 2021. So, what I want to point out with this article is that the appointment for the public must be kept.

 First, the appointment to people should be preserved and protected at all costs. Think about the background of law schools. The government established the law schools to replace the college of law. As a result, when many students enter the college, they choose other majors and go to the law school. Unfortunately, with the government change decision about the bar exam, many of them now regret their choice. If the government had not decided on the abolition of the bar exam, many of them might have enrolled in the college of law and prepared for the bar exam.

 In addition, like this argument, postponement of the bar exam will recur. Most people regard the bar exam as a persisting foothold for entry into legal circles. Why do people believe strongly in the maintenance of the bar exam? Maybe this government’s decision breaks the trust about the law schools and makes them expect the maintenance of the bar exam. Eventually, people’s beliefs will be continued and law school will exists as a name-only contrastive bar exam.

 Finally, the competition in legal circles will change for the worse in the case that the law school and bar exam are combined. Although the route of law school is different from the bar exam, they meet at the same field. Because a great portion of judicial officers are from the bar exam, upcoming competition between the law school and the bar exam will go the bar exam way. Moreover, the division between them will be intensified and the service level of legal circles will ultimately deteriorate.

 The appointment for the public must be observed because of its value. However, the government has not only performed this appointment, but also went back on it. Thus, the government should think about the meaning of appointment and contemplate the way toward a correct legal profession.

 Yeon-Hwa Gong, Senior

 Department of Political Science and Diplomacy

 The abolition of the bar exam is an appointment for the people

 Some people say that students who disagree with the maintenance of the bar exam and who are in law schools are greedy. Many of those people think law school is only for rich students because the average tuition of national (or public) law schools is almost 10,000,000 won per year. For private law schools, it goes up to 18,000,000 won. As those people say, it seems like an inequality of opportunity and students in law school enjoy the privileges of being rich. However, I think the bar exam should be abolished. There are several reasons to revoke the bar exam.

 First of all, the bar exam should be revealed for a diversity of judicial officers. Recently, professional knowledge in particular fields such as medical understanding is demanded in legal circles. The law schools accepts non-law majors so it can supply various majors to the law field. Secondly, it should be abolished to stop wasting the time of youth. To pass the bar exam, students study for 4.5 years on average and only 3% of examinees pass the exam. We can see that 97% of the test-takers feel depressed and waste a lot of money and time for preparing the exam. I think this is a large loss in the national dimension. Lastly, the most important reason is that the law school system can break down academic cliques. Most successful applicants of the bar exam are from several top universities. To prevent this, the government announced the abolition of the bar exam. As a result, many students who do not belong to top universities can aim to be judicial officers.

 Students now in law schools believed the declaration of the government and entered law school with their dreams in spite of the expensive tuition fees. Now the decision of the Ministry of Justice is against the national consensus. To uphold the majesty of the law and keep the promise with the people, the bar exam should be abolished.