변호사 업무광고의 제한법리 (Research on the Restraints of a Lawyer’s Advertisement)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 건국대학교 법학연구소
· 수록지 정보 : 일감법학 / 48호 / 849 ~ 868페이지
· 저자명 : 최윤희

초록

현행 변호사법은 변호사의 업무광고를 원칙적으로 허용하고 있다. 이는 변호사 업무광고전면금지에서 허용으로 방향이 바뀐 전 세계적인 추세에도 부합하는 입장이다. 업무광고를 허용한다고 하더라도 광고의 내용과 방법 등에서 변호사의 공공성이나 공정한 수임질서를 해치거나 소비자에게 피해를 줄 우려가 있는 광고들은 법상 제한된다. 이외에도 변호사법은 보다구체적인 광고제한 기준 등은 대한변호사협회에 위임하고 있는데, 이러한 법 규정에 근거하여대한변호사협회는 「변호사업무 광고에 관한 규정」, 「인터넷 등을 이용한 변호사업무광고기준」등을 제정⋅시행하고 있다. 최근 들어서 변호사징계 사건들 중에서 업무광고관련 사건 수가 급증하고 있고, 그중에서도 인터넷 등을 이용한 광고가 90퍼센트에 달하고 있다. 본고에서는 변호사 업무광고 제한 법리와 현황 등을 살펴보고, 전문변호사 등록제도, 인터넷광고 윤리문제, 변호사회의 역할 확대라는 세 가지 측면에서 향후 바람직한 방향을 살펴보았다.

영어초록

I have reviewed the current situation and proper direction of the restriction on the lawyers’ advertisement. Historically speaking, Korea has changed its position on the lawyers’ advertisement from ‘total ban’ to ‘restriction to a certain extent’. According to the Article 23 of the “Attorney-At-Law Act”, each attorney-at-law may advertise his or her educational credentials, career, main services offered, performance record and other matters necessary for publicizing his or her services through such media as newspapers, magazines, broadcasts and computer communications. However, a lawyer shall be prohibited from running any advertisement falling under any of the following subparagraphs of the article. In sum, the “Attorney-At-Law Act”, in principle, allows a lawyers’ advertisement, but has restraints on advertisements leading the legal service consumers to wrongful information or shifting too much amount of advertisement cost to the consumers. This reflects the status of a lawyer in our society, whose profession inherently has a public character. In the same line, the Article 2 of the “Attorney-At-Law Act” states that each attorney-at-law shall perform his or her duties independently and freely as a legal professional of public nature. According to the above articles of the “Attorney-At-Law Act”, the Korean Bar Association has enacted the ‘Rules on Advertisement of Attorney-at-Law Practice’, and ‘Standards for Advertisement of Attorney-at-Law Practice using Internet and the like’. I have noticed two special features from the disciplinary cases of the lawyers’ advertisement publicized by the the Korean Bar Association recently. One is the rapid increase of the number of disciplinary advertisement cases during the four years from 2015 to the end of 2018. The other is almost ninety percent of the cases were related to the advertisements through internet and the like. I think the principles of the law and regulations to allow but restrict lawyers’ advertisement to a certain degree is inevitable, given the public status of a lawyer and asymmetrical information between the lawyers and consumers. In an effort to seek proper development of future restrictions of the lawyers’ advertisement, I have reviewed three points. The first one is to seek more proper and specific standards for the registration of a lawyer’s specialty area of the Korean Bar Association. The second is to further develop more concrete legal ethics of lawyers’ advertisement in cyberspace. And the last but not the least, is to further develop and adjust proper roles of the Korean Bar Association and related District Bar Associations with regards to supplying proper information for the legal service consumers without any special advertising methods, and also keeping proper and equitable restraints level on the member lawyers’ advertisements in the future.

참고자료

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