Better outlook for Legal Tech in Korea, but playing catch-up still

Oct 2 Blog

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This May, Korea’s Prosecutor’s Office rejected the Korea’s Bar Association’s lawsuit against the platform LawTalk (which advertises lawyers’ services) for violation of attorney laws. Contrary to the Bar Association’s claims that LawTalk was enticing and misleading clients seeking a lawyer by providing only the information of membership lawyers in their platform, the prosecutor found that there was no unfair presentation of membership lawyers compared to non-membership lawyers. The prosecutor also ruled that it was difficult to interpret advertisements claiming “case analysis by a lawyer within 15 mins” and “when you need a lawyer, use LawTalk” as LawTalk directly conducting legal affairs.  

Such legal tech is already prevalent in North America and Europe: for instance, DoNotPay is a widely used legal tech service in England and the US to check if you have to pay a parking ticket or if there are legal ways to avoid it. In the US, legal tech has even been used as an aid in court’s ruling, such as in Compass which is used to predict the likelihood of re-offences. 

In contrast, Korea’s legal tech industry is still developing, and facing heavy opposition from the local Bar Associations who are mindful of their job security. Although the may ruling rejecting the Bar Association’s lawsuit against LawTalk sparks hopes that legal tech will be able to develop further in Korea, the Bar Association expressing regret and protest at the Prosecutor’s decision indicates that strong opposition remains. It is worth noting that opposition from bar associations have sometimes sparked greater legal tech development – as it did in the US – while in other countries such as Japan, legal tech development benefited from active participation by their bar association members. 

The benefits of legal tech extend to both clients and lawyers. For clients, it is a much cheaper and time-efficient way to get knowledge on legal issues, as well as having a greater ability to choose the most appropriate lawyer for their situation. For lawyers, legal tech enables them to access data more efficiently and quickly, improving collaboration and analysis. Additionally, in western countries, there is a growing expectation by clients for lawyers to be technologically adept and up-to-date in their knowledge. 

However, with the increasing usage of legal tech, there is also a corresponding rise in the consequences a data breach can have. Legal information is highly sensitive personal information, with the lawyer-client privilege being one of few types of information that is granted the most privacy protections. Moreover, in most countries, lawyers and law firms have a professional duty to protect the sensitive information of their clients. Given that data breaches have become increasingly common and affecting more and more people, legal tech and the clients who use and provide information to legal tech must correspondingly prioritize data security and quick responses to data breaches.