The Globalization of Law and Its Result, the Conquest of the Anglo-Saxon Law Firms

Opening the legal market is on the way. Korea is supposed to open its door to foreign lawyers by the end of 2004. However the extent of market access for foreign law firms is yet to be decide. At issues are (1) whether foreign lawyer may practise local laws, (2) whether the domestic branch of international law firms may use their mother firm's name, and (3) whether foreign lawyer may be partners with local lawyers or hire them. International law firms are asking to open the market to the full. Some clients of domestic law firms agrees with them on the ground that no barriers are necessary so long as they are of help to enhance the competitiveness of Korean companies. However, Korean lawyers argue that sudden liberalization could be costly. In this paper, I reviewed the world legal market to propose a best way to handle this controversy. First, I studied how and why mega law firms which govern the world legal market are born in the age of globalization. Second, I reviewed the experience of Germany's opening its legal market as I believed the German case means something to Korea. Korean legal system is similar to Germany's and Germany has been active to open the market to foreign lawyers. Therefore, we can conjecture the figure of our legal system after liberalization by comparing the present and past of German legal market. German legal market is plunged into a turmoil after liberalization. There were two waves of mergers in the past 15 years. It was not until 1989 that German law firms were allowed to have more than one office in the whole country. The first wave of mergers swept in early 1990s after the rule was relaxed. Big firms came after the national mergers. The second wave of..