Background of the "School Violence No-Show" Case
Recently, a case widely known in the Korean legal community as the
'school violence no-show case' has once again become the talk of the
profession. Based on my reading of recent coverage in Newsis ("Attorney
Kwon Objects to Settlement Recommendation in 'School Violence No-Show' Damages
Suit," July 26, 2026), here is how the case has unfolded, along with my
own thoughts on what it means for how lawyers should manage — and, when
necessary, end — their relationships with clients.
After the case was sent back for retrial, the court issued a
settlement recommendation, which Attorney Kwon (61, 33rd class of the Judicial
Research and Training Institute) has since formally objected to, meaning the
case will now proceed to a full court judgment rather than end in settlement.
Earlier, on the 14th, the court had already ordered Attorney Kwon to pay the
mother of the late Park Ju-won, Ms. Lee Gi-cheol, the full 90 million won
originally sought, plus statutory default interest running from the day after
each payment deadline, along with roughly 1.63 million won in additional
interest on the previously confirmed Supreme Court award of 65 million won in
solatium, calculated from the date of the wrongful act.
According to the same reporting, Attorney Kwon — who represented Ms.
Lee — filed only the statement of grounds for appeal and then failed to appear
at three separate hearing dates during the second-instance trial. Under the
Civil Procedure Act, repeated non-appearance at scheduled hearings is treated
as a withdrawal of the appeal, and that is exactly what happened: the case was
lost by default.
Following this case, I found myself thinking once again about how attorneys should begin — and, when necessary, end — their relationships with clients.
If the Relationship Isn't Right, Decide Quickly
Whatever the circumstances that led to taking on a case, I believe
that once a lawyer senses, after that very first conversation with a client,
that 'this relationship is not going to go smoothly,' the lawyer should begin
the withdrawal process without delay.
Opinions among lawyers are divided on Attorney Kwon's case. Some
feel sympathy, arguing that the responsibility she ended up bearing was far
greater than what she was paid to take on. Others are just as quick to say, 'If
she couldn't handle the case properly, she should have withdrawn long before it
came to this.'
I fall into the latter camp — I believe that withdrawing quickly should be the default rule. That said, whenever I hear about colleagues being sued by their own clients, it does not feel like someone else's problem. Once you have concluded that you and a client simply are not a good fit, you need to withdraw as quickly as possible, no matter how much you may hate to give up the fee you have already received, or the contingency fee you might otherwise collect down the road. You should not keep working the case. In my view, that decision should be made within two weeks at the latest. The sooner, the better — for the client and for the lawyer alike. Few things are more painful than forcing yourself to stay in a relationship that simply does not work, and you should not assume that, just because a case itself seems relatively manageable, you will somehow be able to make things work with a difficult client.
The Dilemma of Court-Appointed Cases
The decision gets harder when it comes to court-appointed cases —
public defense, court-appointed representation, or public-interest matters
assigned by an institution. Even so, my position is that a lawyer should, in
principle, choose to withdraw in these situations too, even at the cost of
being marked down when it comes time for reappointment. If you hesitate because
you are worried about your reappointment prospects, the people who ultimately
pay the price are the private clients who trusted you with their lives and
their cases. It is only natural to devote more care and attention to the
clients who retained you directly.
I am often asked, at this point, some version of the same question: 'If you were not going to be able to handle the case properly, why did you take it on in the first place?' But court-appointed and public-defense cases are not ones a lawyer volunteers for — they are assigned automatically through the relevant institution. And realistically, almost no lawyer handles only a single case at a time. Given how many lawyers are practicing today, that kind of workload simply would not be enough to make a living. Especially for busy practitioners, it is common to be handling dozens, even hundreds, of cases at once, and the situation is not any different at large law firms. That is why most clients understand that their lawyer is busy, and place their trust in the lawyer to at least never miss the dates that matter..
Do Not Miss the Warning Signs in Communication
The problem is that some court-appointed clients do not share that
understanding. Assuming the lawyer is not simply phoning in the work, reviewing
the case file and drafting a proper brief typically takes at least two weeks,
sometimes longer for a difficult case. Yet some clients reach out every two or
three days. In more extreme cases, a client might call several times in a
single day. When that happens, I think withdrawing quickly is the right call.
The longer it goes on, the more frustrated that client becomes in their own
mind, and the more likely it is that the lawyer, busy managing that one
relationship, ends up shortchanging every other client's case. That is why,
from the very first conversation, I try to get a read on what kind of client I
am dealing with. And once I sense that the relationship is not going to go
well, I withdraw without delay, even if it costs me something.
Looking at it this way, I cannot help but wish Attorney Kwon had
made that call sooner. I do not know what led her to miss three separate
hearing dates in the appellate proceedings, but I do think the outcome might
have been different had she withdrawn earlier. At the very least, if she had
decided to withdraw the moment she missed that first appellate hearing, I
suspect the ending would have looked very different.
If you are wondering who ends up representing the clients who call constantly, my guess is that it is usually either a lawyer who is just starting out and does not have many cases yet, or a more experienced lawyer who, for whatever reason — perhaps a thin track record of wins — is not getting many new clients.
Closing Thoughts
In the end, Attorney Kwon now finds herself owing far more in
damages than she ever received in fees, and her professional reputation has
suffered damage that will be difficult to repair.
This is not a problem unique to the Korean legal profession. Lawyers in the United States and Europe are no strangers to being sued by their own clients either. That is exactly why every aspiring lawyer needs to keep this lesson in mind: being targeted by a client is not rare, and the way to protect your own reputation is to withdraw decisively the moment you sense that a relationship is not working. Only by holding to that principle can you truly protect your career as well.
