“The era of 20,000 lawyers has come. In order to thrive, we all must reach out to overseas markets including the US market,” argued Attorney B.J. Kim of Kim & Bae, P.C. in New York. At the Korean Lawyers Association conference, B.J. Kim made a speech on ‘Strategy for the U.S.-Korea FTA: Opening up of the Korean market for foreign legal consulting services.’ Foreign law firms have already established their presence in Korea. As of August 2015, 26 law firms have entered the domestic market and 20 of those 26 law firms rank in top 100 biggest law firms in the world. B.J. Kim further stated that young lawyers in Korea must reach out to foreign markets especially the US market and not struggle within the already saturated domestic market. The US market accounts for 45% of the whole market in the world and the market size is approximately $350 billion, roughly hundredfold of the domestic market. The biggest law firm in the US, Baker & McKenzie is equal in size to the whole domestic market.
