The Law Society is to run a trade mission to the ‘high growth market’ of South Korea this month, after the signing of an agreement to liberalise legal services opened the way for UK firms to seek new opportunities in the country.

The EU-Korea Fair Trade Agreement (FTA), which is expected to be ratified this year and could be endorsed as early as June, will remove barriers preventing the UK legal services industry from doing business with a country that UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has dubbed a ‘high growth market’. The agreement will remove the current £1.4bn in customs duties on EU exports to South Korea and the £964m duties that flow in the opposite direction. South Korea is the world’s 15th largest economy.

Law Society president Robert Heslett said Chancery Lane would be leading a trade mission to South Korea on 19 April to ‘develop and consolidate’ relationships with local law firms. He said: ‘There are many opportunities for lawyers in construction, ship building, intellectual property, telecommunications, retail and financial services.’

He added that the FTA would ‘open up the market to UK firms at the same time as, or earlier than, their US competitors’.Law firms already signed up to the trade mission, which is supported by UKTI, include national firm Addleshaw Goddard; magic circle firm Allen & Overy; City firm Clyde & Co; London firm Fenwick Elliott; City firm Herbert Smith; Leeds firm HGF Law; and national firm Pinsent Masons.

Meanwhile, Solicitors Regulation Authority policy adviser Nicola Taylor took part in a Foreign and Commonwealth Office visit to China last month and met Chinese lawyers to discuss regulatory and human rights issues. Taylor said her role was to explain the ethical problems faced by lawyers in England and Wales, but added that the dialogue also extended to the assessment of mental capacity, privately run prisons and the high cost of litigation in the UK. Taylor said: ‘As regulators we were keen to learn from the experiences of others. We were not there to preach.’