변호사 면허제의 정치경제학: 효율적 지대추구론 적용의 시론적 연구

초록

This paper explores the lawyer licensing from a political economy perspective of rent-seeking theory, departing from the traditional legal approach. For the purpose of study, we selected four subjects - the introduction of law school system, conflicts with legal-adjacent professions, the legal market opening, and legal-tech conflicts - through semantic network analysis. To compare the short-term social waste due to rent-seeking in these subjects, we derived criteria of competitiveness, openness, and complexity based on Tullock's efficient rent-seeking theory. The results show that the increase in the number of lawyers due to the introduction of law schools and the resulting conflicts with legal-adjacent professions led to social waste in the lawyer licensing. In contrast, social waste from legal-tech conflicts showed little short-term change, while the one from legal market opening with entry barriers actually decreased. This demonstrates that long-term efforts to minimize rent can create short-term conflicts and social costs, potentially leading to unintended consequences. Therefore, to minimize social waste, policies should be designed considering short-term efficiency while removing rent in the long-term, such as reducing the number of rent-seekers and limiting the power of interest groups. Despite methodological limitations, this study is significant as a preliminary application of efficient rent-seeking theory to the lawyer licensing, showing potential for future research in various fields.

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