Mr. A, a man in his 30s, decided to report the perpetrator after suffering damage from online defamation. Mr. A, who was hiring a lawyer for the first time, entrusted the case to lawyer B, who contacted him first while looking for a lawyer through a legal application. However, Lawyer B continued to avoid contact from Mr. A after unilaterally notifying him that he could not go due to a confirmed case of COVID-19 on the day of the police investigation. In the end, Mr. A had to write a complaint himself, and was able to proceed with the lawsuit only after appointing another lawyer. Mr. A, who paid 3.3 million won in fees to lawyer B, eventually filed a lawsuit for damages and received 2.53 million won back.
In addition, it was revealed that Attorney B, in addition to Mr. A, had consistently behaved insincerely by taking on lawsuits from victims of voice phishing, receiving fees, only filing a 10-line complaint, and avoiding contact when the lawsuit began. Jeong Hyeok-ju, a spokesperson for the Korean Bar Association, told the Seoul Shinmun on the 30th, “Their tactic is to take on a client in a ‘low-price, low-cost manner’ with a fee as low as one-third and then neglect the legal work,” adding, “There are quite a few clients who are suffering similar damage.”
It has been revealed that ‘scam lawyers’, who receive a case request for a low fee and then cut off contact after only receiving the deposit, are going out of their way despite the Bar Association’s disciplinary action. After receiving numerous requests for disciplinary action, the Bar Association ‘expelled’ Attorney B in June for violating his duty of good faith. However, after filing an appeal with the Ministry of Justice regarding the ‘expulsion’ disciplinary action, Attorney B appeared to continue practicing as a lawyer. It is pointed out that even if disciplinary action is confirmed by the Ministry of Justice, if it leads to administrative litigation, it may continue to create victims.
According to the Bar Association, the number of lawyers disciplined for violating the duty of good faith was 35 last year, and only 14 this year as of September. Accordingly, there are voices pointing out the effectiveness of the Bar Association’s disciplinary action. Oh Young-geun, a professor at Hanyang University Law School, said, “If the problem continues despite disciplinary action, we may consider ways to impose disciplinary action by an external organization other than the Bar Association.”
The problem is that it is not easy for victims of so-called ‘scam lawyers’ to receive proper relief. In some cases, like Mr. A, a portion of the fee is refunded through a civil lawsuit, but a separate lawyer must be appointed and the trial takes a lot of time. In addition to civil lawsuits, there are no reasonable options for criminal punishment for fraud, etc.
Reporter Park Jae-hong