[Interview] Local residents should have easy access to legal consultation

May 28, 2026, 09:20 am

Lee Jun-chul, Managing Partner of Sooryun Asia Law Firm / Photo courtesy of Sooryun Asia

"The greatest discomfort residents face is the absence of a reliable, easily accessible 'first window of inquiry' whenever they need it."

Lee Jun-chul, Managing Partner of Sooryun Asia Law Firm, has been serving as a community lawyer for Namjong-myeon in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, for nine years this year. During his military service, Attorney Lee worked as a public-service law officer at the Korea Legal Aid Corporation. There, he witnessed firsthand the struggles of residents who were cut off from legal assistance due to economic or geographical constraints, which inspired him to step forward as a community lawyer to serve local communities. The community lawyer system is a public framework designed to help residents in lawyerless villages—who occupy legal blind spots—consult seamlessly with attorneys assigned to their respective districts.

"Many people rely on inaccurate information found online and miss the crucial window for a response, or they abandon their claims entirely out of a vague anxiety over expenses," Lee noted. "It has been disheartening to see matters that could have been resolved instantly with a brief consultation or a preliminary diagnosis by a lawyer escalate into full-blown regional conflicts and severe damages."

Attorney Lee remarked that the community lawyer system can effectively alleviate the "legal isolation" felt by residents. The core benefit is that it transforms legal trouble from "something terrifying and ambiguous" into "a challenge that can be solved." Even though a lawyer does not reside permanently within the village, the mere fact that a regular consultation window remains open serves as a vital psychological anchor for the community.

However, Lee advised that a nationally standardized framework must be engineered so that residents do not slip back into "legal vacuums" due to discrepancies in support across municipal governments. Gwangju City in Gyeonggi Province, for example, boasts an infrastructure where dedicated civil servants compile and organize necessary consultation materials in advance, enabling deep-dive legal assessments even within a compact 20-to-30-minute window. Community lawyers also make direct on-site visits to the districts. Conversely, there are regions where public awareness of the community lawyer program itself remains staggeringly low.

Lee also emphasized that to ensure the long-term sustainability of the program, practical support for participating lawyers must be institutionalized. "At present, the community lawyer system relies heavily on the sense of mission and voluntary service of individual attorneys," he stated. "For the framework to thrive over the long haul, institutional backstops—such as reasonable expense reimbursements or public-interest activity incentives—are absolutely critical."

Son Seung-hyun

#Legal consultation #Laywer