[Contribution] ‘Structural deception’, separate law firms need institutional overhaul

The Korean Bar Association recently raised the issue of the ‘network law firm’ structure, saying, “Some law firms are misleading consumers by excessively inflating the organization’s appearance.” In particular, he pointed out that “a small number of lawyers at local branch offices take on cases and advertise them as if a large organization headquartered in Seoul handles them directly,” and raised concerns that legal consumers are being exposed to false and exaggerated information.

However, this point is not exactly a problem of ‘network law firms’. Rather, the reality of deceptive advertising like the above mostly comes from the ‘separate production system’. The ‘separate law firm’ appears to be a single law firm on the outside, but its actual operation method is not integrated at all. This is because each member independently manages events and resulting profits. In reality, it operates in a similar way to a private office. In the case of these law firms, their advertising emphasizes the law firm's collaboration and organized response, but in reality, many cases are handled by lawyers alone.

In other words, it is reasonable to view the advertising case that the Bar Association was concerned about as a structural problem that commonly occurs in separate law firms, not network law firms. It is unclear who is handling the case, whether the entire organization is jointly responsible, and whether computers, data, and manpower are shared within the organization. Legal consumers form trust based solely on the appearance of the organization, but in reality, they end up relying on the piecemeal handling of work by individual lawyers.

In fact, the structural problems of the separate production system have been pointed out several times for several years. A representative example is the case of Attorney A, who failed to appear several times at a school violence trial and had the lawsuit withdrawn. Immediately after the incident occurred, the branch office of the law firm to which the lawyer belonged drew a line, stating, ‘The lawyer in question has withdrawn from the main office and is not affiliated with our branch office.’ This is an incident that exposes the structural limitations of the separate system, which entrusts work entirely to individual lawyers and allows them to perform it independently, and the damage is falling on the general public.

Nevertheless, the Bar Association seems to be ignoring the essence of the problem. The Korean Bar Association is ignoring the problem of the separate system, which has been pointed out for a long time, and shifting responsibility by creating an unclear term called ‘network law firm’ that does not even have a legal definition. In practice, the negative frame of 'network' is placed on a place with a 'one firm' structure that operates as 'one law firm' by integrating the computer, human resources, and profit systems, while it does not take issue with the separate product system structure, which is inconsistent between the true substance and appearance. This is a neglect of the Bar Association's original responsibility to protect the rights of the people and ensure transparency of consumer information.

The real problem is ‘structure’. Cases where the organizational system revealed in advertising does not match the actual operating system can be seen as a direct cause of misleading consumers. The legal service market should be evaluated by its responsibility structure and actual operating system, not by its signboard or name. Even if they share the same brand, law firms that use computers, data, and human resources together and have a shared responsibility system can protect consumers by providing a higher level of integrated services.

Now we need to correct the essence. The non-essential frame of a ‘network law firm’ must be removed and institutional arrangements must be made starting with separate law firms. Consumers have the right to know the truth. If a law firm advertises itself as an organization, its operations must also be one. Unless this is made clear, trust in the legal services market can no longer be restored.

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[Contribution] ‘Structural deception’ Separate law firms need institutional overhaul (link)