Once again a delegation of second-year law students from South Korea’s Handong International Law School have traveled to Campbell University to take part in three weeks of intensive study for a semester’s credit in Trial Advocacy law. This arrangement is one of several exchange and cooperative programs between Campbell and the South Korean law school that was launched five years ago as a graduate law program preparing students for global practice with an American and international focus. Almost all the Handong students who have participated in these special study programs at Campbell have gone on to pass U.S. bar exams. Professor Lynn Buzzard is the charter dean of the Handong law school and helped the university to develop its law program. Several Campbell professors have been adjunct faculty at this distinctively Christian school in Asia, the only graduate, English-based, western law-focused school in Asia. William Woodruff, associate professor of law at Campbell’s Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law, puts the Korean students through their paces as they try a breach of contract case involving a new version of a video game, “Smart Plug-2.” The plaintiffs claim the new game should be covered under an existing licensing agreement, while the defendants believe it should be considered a separate product, requiring a new licensing agreement. “The course is very difficult, very intense,” said Jiyeon Sung. “We haven’t been able to see much of this country because we’ve had to study so hard.” Sung, Owen Chung, Heather Kwak, Dan Park and Shawn Lee said they have had time to discover North Carolina barbecue and like it very much. “I want to become an expert on barbecue,” laughed Chung. “I hear different regions have different styles.” The students arrived in the United States on July 14, and will depart for Korea on August 3, but first they will visit Holden Beach, N.C. before returning home. “We are told that the beaches are very beautiful here, and we are anxious to see them for ourselves,” Park said. One major cultural difference is in the way Koreans and American view elders, Sung explained. “We really use a different language when we address elders. We would never call an older person by his or her first name, and we always bow to our professors.” Other students who participated in the Trial Advocacy program at Campbell were Sonya SeoYoung Kim and Violet Eun Youn Ki. Another annual summer program involving the two schools is an American Bar Association-approved cooperative that includes Campbell and Handong students in a five-week program in Korea. This year, seven Campbell students joined seven Koreans and seven internationals from Africa, Europe, Central Asia and Southeast Asia in a program involving international business law, asylum refugee law and current legal issues in Asia, including North Korean issues, free trade agreements and globalization. Campbell professors Alan Button and Lynn Buzzard have led that program now in its third year. Handong law student have also spent a semester as exchange students at Campbell.Photo Copy: Korean students Owen Chung, left, and Dan Park, of Handong International Law School, prepare their case for trial during a class at Campbell University’s Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law. (Photo by Scott Capell)
Korean law students get a taste of American education and culture