A deep look at how global influences reshaped South Korea's legal system - blending foreign models with local traditions and sparking new inequalities.
Examining how globalization has reshaped South Korea's legal institutions while deepening old hierarchies, the contributors show that reforms in legal education, the legal profession, and the jury system were not simple adoptions of foreign models but complex hybridizations that combined global ideals with entrenched local practices. By analyzing the “Americanization” of law schools, restructuring of the legal profession, and experiments with citizen participation in trials, the book exposes the tensions inherent in legal reform within a rapidly globalizing society. South Korea's experience illustrates how efforts to modernize often collide with cultural norms, state agendas, and structural inequalities, producing uneven and occasionally conflicting outcomes. This volume offers fresh insights for scholars of law and society, comparative legal studies, and East Asian politics, as well as for policymakers navigating the challenges of global reform.

Jeong-Chul Kim is an independent researcher and works as a civil servant at the Donggu Office in Gwangju, KOR.
Joong-Hwan Oh is a Professor of Sociology at Hunter College of The City University of New York, USA.