로스쿨에서의 이론교육과 실무교육

Even though the Korean law school system, which is introduced as a new legal education and training system, will launch in March 2009, the debate on what and how should be taught at law school is still controversial. While the ‘practice’ has been emphasized over and over again in the debate on the introduction of law school system in Korea, the content and methodology of the education of practice at law school still remains unclear. Most Korean lawyers seem to think that law schools should teach the technique for lawsuits just as the Judicial Research and Training Institute. The new education of practice, however, should not be restricted to the judges’ and prosecutors’ technique. It should cover the broad area of what lawyers do, overcoming the existing narrow concept of legal practice. On the other hand, the education of theory should also be remodeled. The Korean legal education at universities and colleges has developed noticeably even in the poor conditions after the liberation from colonial rule in 1945. However, it still faces the criticism that it has been inclined to the import of the foreign theories and has not reflected the ‘Korean reality’ satisfactorily as a result of its subordination to the National Bar Examination. The new education of theory should highlight the practical meaning of the theories in the Korean society, overcoming the existing passive thought clinging to the examination. For a new legal education at Korean law school, professors for theory and professors for practice should work together. They should make concerted efforts to settle as soon as possible the content of the bar examination which should be closely connected to the education at law school, and should cooperate with each other in the classes of law school.