Hewitt pledge boosts City law firms' drive to open lucrative Korean market

Liberalisation: McIntosh to address business community on need for foreign lawyers

A concerted drive by City law firms and the Law Society to open South Korea's legal market was boosted last week by an offer of assistance from Korean trade minister Hwang Doo-Yun.Mr Hwang suggested to UK trade secretary Patricia Hewitt - during an official visit to Korea - that Law Society President David McIntosh should address representatives of Korea's business and financial community about liberalisation when he visits Korea next month, and offered the help of his ministry staff in setting up the meeting.Korea is one of the few lucrative markets left in the world which prohibit foreign lawyers from practising.Helen Potts, the Law Society's international policy executive for north-east Asia, who recently visited Korea to prepare the way for Mr McIntosh, said: 'Large Korean firms looking to invest abroad or to tap global capital markets would be obvious clients, and might help push the liberalisation process forward.'Mr McIntosh's visit will round off a year of strong lobbying by the Law Society and its Korean task force, made up of a group of City firms interested in the Korean market.Last year, then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw button-holed his Korean counterpart Han Seung-Soo over the country's impregnable legal market, and financial secretary Paul Boateng raised the case for liberalisation with Korea's deputy prime minister, Jin Nyum, and senior economic secretary Lee Ki-ho.Prime Minister Tony Blair also raised the issue with Korean President Kim Dae Jung on his state visit to the UK last year.

The politicians were all fully briefed by the Law Society beforehand.Mr McIntosh will be accompanied on his visit to Korea by task force representatives from Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Richards Butler.Other firms on the task force are Denton Wilde Sapte, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, CMS Cameron McKenna, Ince & Co, Holman Fenwick & Willan, and Simmons & Simmons - which has a secondment scheme and referral relationship with Korean firm Shin & Kim.In a survey by the Law Society's international department, task force members calculated that the Korean market would generate annual fees of $27 million (19 million).Jeremy Fleming