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A law firm and its representative attorney, who were fined for advertisements highlighting the attorney's background as a former judge, have lost their lawsuit challenging the disciplinary action.
The Seoul Administrative Court's Administrative Division 14 (Presiding Judge Lee Sang-deok) recently ruled against the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Law Firm A and its representative attorney against the Ministry of Justice's Attorney Disciplinary Committee to cancel the disciplinary decision.
Law Firm A and its representative attorney were each penalized with a fine of 5 million won by the Korean Bar Association for violating related regulations, including running advertisements likely to mislead clients.
The law firm filed an objection, but after the Ministry of Justice's Attorney Disciplinary Committee dismissed it in November of last year, they filed an administrative lawsuit.
However, the court ruled that the questioned advertising expressions all violated regulations.
First, the court judged as exaggerated an advertisement introducing that the representative attorney had written some 3,300 civil and administrative rulings and decisions and some 1,900 criminal rulings and decisions while serving as a judge.
The court pointed out that "the figures were merely calculated by estimating the number of rulings and decisions a judge writes in a week based on media reports or guesses, and applying that to the representative attorney's tenure."
It added, "Legal expertise is not simply proportional to the number of documents read while handling cases. The plaintiffs advertised as if the representative attorney possessed substantial expertise by reading many documents, but even the basis for calculating those figures is unclear."
The court also judged that promotional phrases such as "The attorney most proficient in the standards and interpretation of stalking crimes is... a former judge" and "If a former judge utilizes their experience as a judge to respond to stalking crimes, investigative agencies will never be able to indict you" constituted grounds for discipline.
The court noted that the ads gave the impression that only former lawyers who were judges possess superior expertise in the field of stalking crimes, and that retaining such attorneys would secure favorable outcomes in investigations or trials regardless of the actual facts.
It further pointed out that the advertisements were highly likely to mislead clients by exaggerating the representative attorney's tenure experience.
The court dismissed all of the plaintiffs' claims, stating that the disciplinary fine of 5 million won could not be considered excessively harsh.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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