For my sixth networking meeting, I had a conversation with a lawyer who works for CCRS (Credit Counseling and Recovery Service) in Seoul. I was very glad to have this opportunity because law is a field I am quite interested in and I was also curious what a career as a lawyer is like in Korea. CCRS is a public agency that aims to support low-income or disadvantaged debtors get out of the cycle of debt and become financially stable. The lawyer I spoke with works on assisting clients with the complex process of applying for bankruptcy. Before telling me in detail about her work at CCRS, she explained her path to working at CCRS, because it was essential to the purpose she found in practicing law.

She first became interested in becoming a lawyer because when she was young, there were not very many female lawyers, so she wanted to become one. After passing the very difficult Korean bar exam (she said many people have to study for 10 years to pass it), she landed a job as a trustee in bankruptcy at a law firm. However, in her two years at the law firm, she often did not feel fulfilled or comfortable with the work she was doing because many cases involved representing people who did not have good intentions and trying to find loopholes in the law so that these clients could be exempted from responsibility. Representing these clients who she described as on the border between bad and good did not feel fulfilling to her because she had always wanted to practice law to try to help people who truly needed it.

While at the law firm, she worked on two pro-bono cases that had a profound effect on her. One case’s client was a woman who wanted to file for divorce from her husband because of domestic violence, and the other was a sexual assault case. Being able to help these clients, particularly female clients, felt much more like her calling than the work she was doing at the law firm. I had heard the term pro-bono before but was not too familiar with the specifics of it, so she explained to me that pro-bono cases are those that people apply for through the court. These cases are mostly from people who may not have the money or resources to find a lawyer on their own. The court then distributes these cases. There are full-time pro-bono lawyers, who only work on these types of cases, but in Korea all lawyers must complete 20 hours of pro-bono work per year.

After about two years at the law firm, my interviewee got an opportunity from CCRS, the public agency where she currently works. She is still working in bankruptcy law at CCRS, but her clients come from very different situations from the clients she had at the law firm. Since CCRS is a public agency instead of a private law firm, they serve the elderly, poor, handicapped, and people who were not able to receive an education who cannot afford a lawyer. She gathers and submits the correct documents clients need to apply for bankruptcy and helps them with the complex process. As the process often takes 1-2 years, she stays in contact with clients for this entire period. She said the most difficult aspect of the job is that because the process is so complex and many clients are experiencing a lot of stress from creditors who have treated them badly, they will sometimes take out their frustration on her, making conversation difficult. However, at the end of the process, clients often express gratitude because after finally filing for bankruptcy they can have a fresh start and get out of the cycle of debt as well as do things like get a job legally, use a credit card, and open accounts. Being able to help people get a fresh start and live their lives again free of debt and creditors on their backs is the most rewarding part of working at CCRS for her. And while she did not enjoy her time at the law firm, she said that she is still thankful for it because it led her to this opportunity at CCRS where she is doing work she truly finds meaningful.

I learned a lot from this conversation about bankruptcy law, law in general, and practicing law in Korea. Bankruptcy law was something that I really knew nothing about before, and had no idea that a bankruptcy lawyer could have the ability to help people so much. Talking with this lawyer showed me that even an area of law that I never considered before could hold much more interest to me than I initially thought. It was very rewarding to talk to her not only for the valuable knowledge that she shared with me, but also because her genuine passion for what she does and desire to help others was inspiring and showed me that as a lawyer one really can make a difference in peoples’ lives.