Abstract This study analyses the diversification of the South Korean legal field following institutional changes. South Korean reforms to legal education and legal practice between 2007 and 2011, specifically the 2007 Act on the Establishment and Management of Professional Law Schools and the 2011 Attorney-at-Law Act amendments, expanded the pool of new attorneys and increased the number of law firms. The government increased the supply of lawyers by reforming the legal education system, while concurrent regulations promoted gender diversity in the system. Restrictions on establishing law firms were loosened. Using data on founding partners who established law firms in South Korea from 2000 to 2016, this study examines the effects of these legal reforms on the gender diversity of founding law firm partners. The findings reveal that the proportion of women among founding partners increased following these reforms, suggesting that the institutional changes encouraged gender desegregation in the Korean legal field.
Park et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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