Korea’s National Assembly has passed legislation allowing foreign law firms to open offices in the country, but only if a free trade agreement has been ratified with the law firm’s home country.
The legislation passed on March 2. It specified that foreign lawyers would only be allowed to practise their home country’s law as foreign legal consultants and will not be able to hire locally qualified lawyers, patent attorneys or accountants.
This change has no effect on US law firms because the controversial Korea-US FTA has not been ratified by either country. President Obama criticised the agreement during his election campaign last year and commentators do not expect Congress to ratify it this year.
Korea is negotiating FTAs with the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.