The son of Supreme Court Justice Seo Kyung-hwan has taken a job at Kim & Chang, leading to the reassignment of 35 cases previously overseen by him last year. This move aims to prevent potential conflicts of interest arising from family members working at law firms.
According to data submitted by the Supreme Court's Administrative Office to the National Assembly on October 5, a total of 36 cases were reassigned last year due to family members working as lawyers. This figure is approximately 2.8 times higher than the 13 cases in 2024, marking the highest number in the past five years.
Of these, 35 cases were reassigned due to Seo's son's employment at the law firm. The cases included 34 civil matters and 1 criminal case. Seo's son reportedly began working as a lawyer at Kim & Chang in August of last year.
The remaining case involved the spouse of former Supreme Court Justice Lee Heung-gu, who works at the law firm Jipyung. One case recorded in this year's data was also reassigned for the same reason. Lee retired last month.
The Supreme Court restricts case assignments for justices whose family members work at law firms to prevent conflicts of interest. This policy is managed internally to track family relationships of justices.
However, the restriction on case assignments does not mean that all cases in the justice's division are barred from being assigned. In 2019, the Supreme Court revised its regulations to limit the assignment restrictions to the individual justice rather than the entire division.
When Seo's son's employment at Kim & Chang became public last year, the Supreme Court reassigned cases involving Kim & Chang from Seo's existing assignments and subsequently imposed restrictions on his case assignments. Even if a case involving Kim & Chang is assigned to Seo's division, he will not participate in the hearings or sign the judgments.
Other justices also have family members working at law firms. Justice Oh Kyung-mi's spouse is affiliated with the law firm Inyu, while Justice Lee Suk-yeon’s spouse works at the law firm Ethos. Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae's daughter and son-in-law are associated with the law firm Jipyung.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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