Guest post by Seung Hoon Park, a 2L at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Seung Hoon was a research assistant for Daniel W. Linna Jr. during the summer of 2020. In this guest post, Seung Hoon examines the current regulation of South Korea’s legal tech industry and emphasizes the need for change. Seung Hoon discusses how updating legal-services regulations will help grow South Korea’s legal tech industry so that more law firms can provide services based on advanced technology.

Introduction

In South Korea, the legal tech industry is in its early stages, exploring its way forward in an environment limited by regulations. Large South Korean law firms are adopting technology tools, such as e-discovery and digital forensics equipment.[i] Although lawyers use technology tools to help them deliver services, they are not yet providing client-facing tools using technology, such as expert systems that can be used by clients to solve a specific problem. Most of South Korea’s legal tech services are provided by start-up companies. The services provided by these start-up companies are mainly divided into 1) attorney-search services, 2) automated document completion services, and 3) legal information research services. Below, I introduce the contents of each service, the start-ups providing it, and related regulations.
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