Blind man passes bar exam for first time in Korea

SEOUL, Nov. 25 (Yonhap) -- A visually impaired man passed the state-administered
bar examination Tuesday for the first time in South Korea, where braille books
are still largely unavailable.
Choi Young, 27, was among the 1,005 successful applicants who passed the final
interview of the highly competitive bar exam to become the country's first-ever
blind lawyer, the Justice Ministry said.
The graduate of Seoul National University College of Law who passed the test in
his sixth attempt since 2002 said welfare workers typed law books word by word
for him, which usually took two to three months. The text files were then
converted to voice output on his computer reader program, some of them with typos
and missing lines, he said.
"If we can get the original files directly from the publishing company, it can
save us a lot of time and money," Choi said.
Braille publications are rare due to copyright issues. Choi hopes the government
will promote publications exclusively for the blind.
Choi said he hopes to become a lawyer after finishing the mandatory two-year
training at the Judicial Research and Training Institute.
This year's bar exam also saw a record number of successful female applicants.
The gender ratio was 623 to 382, with women accounting for 38 percent of the
total, up 3 percent from the previous year. Successful applicants were aged
between 21 and 48. The passing rate was 23.5 to 1.
Korea is a latecomer when it comes to blind legal practitioners. In the United
States, about 250 people are registered as members of the American Association of
Visually Impaired Attorneys. Japan saw its first blind person pass the bar exam
in 1981 and has since accepted three more.
The bar exam is set to be phased out by 2016 as the country introduces a
U.S.-style law school in March to meet the growing demand for lawyers and produce
global talents ahead of the opening of Korea's markets in coming years.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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