법률시장 개방과 개정 외국법자문사법 연구

On April 30th, the amended Foreign Legal Consultant Act went into force. The FLC amendment is to institutionalize the phase two opening of the Korean legal services market as promised in Korea-ASEAN FTA,which includes the provisions that would henceforth have a significant impact on the liberalization of legal services market in Korea. This paper is focused on the main points and relevant issues regarding the amended Foreign Consultant Act. The essence of phase two liberalization which is regulated by the Amendment is allowing cooperation between the Foreign Legal Consultant Office and the Korean lawyers to jointly deal with the specific cases which both involves foreign and domestic issues, and sharing the profit. Such cooperation might raise concerns over the specific scope of cooperation that allows joint work and profit sharing. However, the answers to the majority of them can be found in the text of Foreign Legal Consultant Act, especially in respect with the phase two liberalization. Foreign Legal Consultant Act, in principle, forbids any types of cooperation, but it allows specific cooperative agreements on particular cases, only to the Foreign Legal Consultant Offices of the countries that are subject to the benefit of expanded opening up of the Korean legal services market. Hence, it is deemed that the comprehensive cooperation, joint handling of cases without profit-sharing, and partnership with other professionals who are related to legal practice, which are not explicitly stated in the Amendment, are still forbidden. On the other hand,cooperation between the overseas-based law firms and the domestic law firms, and FLC's consultation on foreign laws in respect to patent and labor relations can be allowed to certain extent. The amended Act requires the Foreign Legal Consultant Offices to make pre-registration and en bloc ex-post facto report in order to provide legal services under phase two opening up of the Korean legal services market. It is to pay a due consideration to ensure observance of the requirements under phase two opening up of the Korean legal services market, while minimizing the administrative burden of FLCOs. Above this, some regulations have been newly legislated including: ban on FLC's illegitimate intervention in domestic affairs on account of cooperation; payment of fees when applying for Foreign Legal Consultant qualification and Foreign Legal Consultant Office license; and issuance of registration certificate and furnishing of registration documents. The enforcement regulation and public notification have also been revised following the amendment of FLC Act. Under the amended FLC Act, the Korean legal services market is currently opened up to phase two, only to ASEAN countries, but the application of phase two liberalization will be expanded to include EU countries from July 1st, 2013. From then on, EU law firms will be able to have access to the Korean legal services market, having a considerable influence on the domestic legal services sector. It is my expectation that the discussion on the amended Foreign Legal Consultant Act for the opening of Korean legal services market would become more lively so that it contributes to the successful liberalization of the domestic legal services market.