Passing the judicial examination was the only way to become a legal professional in Korea in the past. In 2009, the Korean government abolished the examination and introduced law schools to problems like examinees clinging to taking the judicial examination. People should now complete a 3-year course at a law school to become legal professionals. However, law schools have many issues: low-income groups can be at a disadvantage, and thus, the limitations to becoming judicial officers will rise, depriving people of their dreams to go into law. So, the government should reintroduce the judicial examination.

           A purpose of introducing law schools is to produce judicial officers with abundant experience. So, there is no regulation on age limits in selecting freshmen for law schools. However, according to Aju Business Daily in August, freshmen in law schools are primarily from a particular age group: under 28-year-olds make up 80.95% of all freshmen, with 23~25-year-olds accounting for 44.21%, and 26~28-year-olds for 36.74% in 25 national law schools. This is because women aged 23 to 25 and men aged 26 to 28, usually prepare for the entrance of law schools after graduating from universities. Also, according to Maeil Business News in June, 53.9% of all freshmen for this year’s domestic law schools are alumni from Seoul National University, Yonsei University, and Korea University. This shows that law schools have failed to accomplish their purposes to select people from various backgrounds, as its freshmen are concentrated in specific age groups and from only a few universities. In addition, law school's annual tuition is very expensive: 14.25 million won on average as of last year. Therefore, the social ladder disappeared after introducing law schools. Low-income groups have difficulty covering private education expenses as many students get help from private education to pass the bar examination[1] in accordance with relative evaluation. Study environments of low-income groups are much poorer since they mostly attend school by covering expensive tuition and private education expenses themselves, while high-income groups can study with ease by the smaller financial burden. According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun in May, Choi whose right hand and foot were handicapped with brain lesions, attended law school while working to be able to afford private education expenses. Also, he earned money by taking time off from school due to his family's circumstances. He said, “Students in hard situations have more difficulty to pass examination as the wealth gap is a prime variable in the bar examination.”

           An official in law school opined on the necessity of measures for the present system saying, “People who try to enter law schools after accumulating social experiences can be disadvantaged when the structure becomes robust in which successful applicants of law schools are biased to specific universities and the young with insufficient social experience.” It is improper to abolish the examination without solutions and to institute law schools causing other problems, despite existing problems of the examination. Law schools are creating unfavorable situations for low-income groups by operating differently from the original purpose. Thus, the government must reintroduce the judicial examination after its supplementation for law institutes to foster legal professionals in a fairer way.