Episode 3

Come to think of it, in the original story, Professor Kang Chang-soo was also a relative of Park Yoo-seung’s on his mother's side.

In the early part of the original story, Park Yoo-seung, believing this, acted even more arrogantly.

But Professor Kang always saw him as a thorn in his side and a potential stain on the family, a dangerous element.

In fact, Park Yoo-seung, out of jealousy towards Shin Seo-joon, ends up causing a serious incident and is expelled from Korea University Law School.

To avoid following in his footsteps, the answer was to simply stay out of sight and study quietly.

I quickly buried my head back in my book, and Professor Kang Chang-soo, as if losing interest, turned his gaze away from me.

Soon, with the distinctive sound of his cane, thump, thump, he moved towards the podium.

“Attention. Please pay attention.”

The students, who had been scattered and talking amongst themselves, all looked towards the podium at once.

“Before we begin the pre-law program in earnest, I will briefly guide you through the schedule. For the next two weeks, you will attend classes on the three basic laws—Constitutional Law, Civil Law, and Criminal Law—every day, and you will take a total of two tests.”

The old professor's voice was very calm.

“Additionally, there may be assignments that need to be solved in teams during class. This is a process to gauge your current level, so please do your best.”

‘Gauge our current level.’ Perhaps that wasn’t all. If my memory is correct…

“Furthermore, the scores from the aforementioned process will be combined to determine course registration and advisor selection for the regular semester. Also, the top five students will receive a living scholarship of 3 million won as an incentive for excellence.”

As expected.

“This is separate from the merit-based scholarship that was announced during admission, and the same person can receive both. Are there any questions?”

Scholarships didn’t matter. Park Yoo-seung had more money than he knew what to do with.

Course registration wasn’t a critical issue either.

The faculty at Korea University Law School, as depicted in ‘In the Law School’, all had the best skills and experience.

There was no chance of failing by taking any of the courses they assigned.

Besides, studying was something you had to do on your own.

However, advisor selection was a different matter.

Depending on the career path you wanted to pursue, the influence of your advisor was immense.

Let's say there was a student who wanted to go to ‘Jin & An’, the best law firm in Korea.

Then he would have to aim for a spot as an advisee of Professor Park Sung-gwang, who was from Jin & An.

Professor Park Sung-gwang had accumulated a great deal of know-how and resources on recruitment at Jin & An.

If you wanted to go into the financial sector after graduation, you had to find Professor Choi Sung-chul.

He had worked as an international financial advisory lawyer, moving between Wall Street and domestic securities firms, and he often arranged opportunities for his advisees to meet with professionals in the financial industry.

If you wanted to become a prosecutor like me?

There was no question, it was Professor Jang Yong-hwan.

A former chief prosecutor and a master of criminal law who had also served on the exam committee for the prosecutor’s written exam several times.

He was the ace of Korea University Law School, having successfully placed all of his advisees who wanted to become prosecutors into the prosecution service without a single exception.

In the original story, Shin Seo-joon also became an advisee of Jang Yong-hwan.

Naturally, the competition to become Jang Yong-hwan’s advisee was extremely fierce.

If my memory was correct, you had to score in the top 10% in this pre-law program.

It was an extremely difficult task, but…

I could do it.

I, who had passed the second stage of the bar exam in just two years.

I, who piled up study books and professor’s texts on my desk while studying with bloodshot eyes every day.

I, who once chewed up and digested more legal knowledge than anyone else here, could do it.

It was true that I had forgotten most of it after years of being consumed by work.

But even if knowledge is fleeting, the know-how to handle it remains etched in the brain.

When it comes to writing answer sheets and thinking in legal terms, no one in this room could match me.

If I put in enough time and effort to fill in what I had forgotten, I was confident that I could be the best here as well.

“It seems there are no questions. Good. Then, let’s start the first test now. The information packet clearly stated that you should bring your own writing utensils, right?”

The students’ expressions froze at the old professor’s bombshell announcement.

A buzz of confusion spread as they wondered if they had heard wrong.

“Um, professor?”

“Yes, student?”

“I’m Han Seol.”

Han Seol, the second-ranked student, also looked quite flustered.

“Han Seol, do you have a question?”

“Did you say test, just now?”

“Yes, I did?”

“The information packet we received said that today’s schedule was a light orientation. Suddenly taking a test is a little…”

Actually, Han Seol was at a considerable advantage if they took the test right now.

While the other students had spent their last winter before entering school with light hearts, she had read ‘The Knot of Civil Law’ twice and had thoroughly prepared.

“A little?”

“I think there could be a problem. We haven’t officially learned anything at school yet, and we weren’t given any notice that we would be taking a test, so…”

But as a person of principles, she had the personality to correct anything she felt was inappropriate, even if it was to her own detriment.

Han Seol's strictness, which made no exceptions, was the reason why readers found her tiresome and, at the same time, why they couldn’t hate her.

“You don’t have to take it too seriously.”

However, Professor Kang Chang-soo simply dismissed it.

“The words ‘light orientation’ are not a lie. The law school life you will face in the future is full of endless tests, evaluations, internships, and presentation competitions.”

“But…”

“In a way, a test is the most accurate orientation to introduce you to law school.”

The old professor reasserted.

“Don’t feel burdened, just take it easy. After all, today’s test only accounts for 10% of the overall pre-law score.”

Alright, let’s get started quickly.

At that voice, the administrative staff popped out in an orderly fashion, seated the students, and distributed the test papers and answer sheets.

Stay calm.

My current legal skills were not much different from the motor skills of a patient who had just woken up from a coma and was learning how to walk.

That doesn’t mean I was going to take the test lightly, but my goal for today was only to check my position and decide on my future learning direction.

Don’t be greedy.

At the same time as I made that resolution in my mind,

“Then. Let’s begin.”

The first test at Korea University Law School had finally begun.

* * *

‘There are a lot of excellent students this year.’

That was the conclusion Professor Kang Chang-soo reached as he walked around the testing room.

Although he had tried to intimidate them at the opening ceremony by saying they were a lagging group, the truth was that Kang Chang-soo knew he couldn’t expect much from the incoming freshmen who hadn’t even started school yet.

After all, the law school system itself was created to train applicants with diverse majors and experiences, not just law, to become legal professionals.

Of course, it was true that many law schools gave some preference to applicants with legal experience through the application process.

Even Korea University Law School had selected many applicants who had prepared for the bar exam in its early years.

But now, young, bright, and promising students with potential were being selected again.

That was why the reason for having a test at this point was not to see perfect answers.

It was to see if the students had done any pre-studying during the break, and if they could adapt to an unfamiliar test and come up with some sort of answer.

‘But this student is different.’

What Kang Chang-soo was looking at was the way Shin Seo-joon, the top-ranked student, was solving the problems.

In this test, he had intentionally not included problems that could only be solved by knowing specific precedents.

Instead, he had focused on problems with clear facts that could be easily solved if one had a correct understanding of general legal principles.

In addition, the scope was limited to the content they would learn in the first semester.

He wanted the students to gain confidence that they could solve legal problems with their own legal mind, rather than seeing law as a subject that required rote memorization.

Shin Seo-joon showed a performance that exactly met that expectation.

As soon as he saw the questions, he wrote down the relevant concepts, requirements, and effects in an outline, and then applied them to the given facts to reach a conclusion.

It was clear that he had mastered all the material that would be covered in the first semester.

Professor Kang Chang-soo’s footsteps then stopped in front of Han Seol.

‘This student has also studied hard.’

If Shin Seo-joon was the type to win with his application of legal principles, Han Seol used her overwhelming memorization of precedents as her weapon.

All of the problems in this test were the result of Kang Chang-soo’s own creation.

Yet, for some reason, Han Seol managed to find precedents that exactly matched the facts of each problem and attached them to her answers.

There were some mistakes here and there, where her understanding of the precedents was somewhat lacking or her points were slightly off the mark, but she generally reached the correct conclusions.

Although they were not as good as the two students, the other students also showed mostly good performances.

Even if they couldn't write well on the parts they hadn't studied enough, many students were writing down what they knew clearly.

It was clear that they were a cohort that could grow as much as possible if they were taught properly after they entered school.

‘On the other hand, that guy…’

Kang Chang-soo’s expression, which had been satisfied, suddenly hardened.

It was because he had reached the side of his nephew, Park Yoo-seung, who was an embarrassment to the family.

First of all, the multiple-choice answer sheet was a problem.

The multiple-choice questions in this test were made up of easy choices that wouldn't be wrong if you had just skimmed through the relevant content once.

Shin Seo-joon had triumphantly chosen the correct answers to all the questions in 15 minutes, and Han Seol, whose strength was memorization, showed off her prowess by completing the multiple-choice section in just 10 minutes.

It seemed that the other students had also done some pre-studying of at least the first semester course, and although they were a bit stuck, they didn’t seem to have much difficulty with the multiple-choice questions.

But what about this guy, Park Yoo-seung?

As soon as he saw the test paper, he nodded his head once and started flipping through the pages at an incredible speed.

The time it took for him to check the answer to the last question was only 3 minutes.

In other words, he had picked them all at random.

He had seen him reading ‘The Knot of Civil Law’ alone during the free time earlier, and he had hoped that he might have changed his mind.

But it seemed that those hopes were in vain.

There was no way that a guy who couldn't solve the easily-made multiple-choice questions would write a good essay-type answer.

As he was about to turn away, Kang Chang-soo thought of it as his last duty as a relative and decided to watch a little longer.

‘...Hmm?’

But, unexpectedly, Park Yoo-seung’s answers were not as bad as he had expected.

Although he frowned every time he looked at a problem and flipped through the law books to find simple contents.

But the answers he wrote were all correct.

Even just looking at the outline of the answers, they were almost perfect.

Even during the bar exam days, it was rare to see answers with such clean and logical outlines.

It was just that the contents under the outline were not written in the exact wording of the theoretical books or the precedents, but in his own vague words, which gave a bad impression.

‘It’s like… someone who studied law a long time ago and mastered it, but has forgotten the specific wording and has written the answers in his own words.’

But that couldn’t be the case.

The Park Yoo-seung that Kang Chang-soo knew was a guy who had never seriously studied law.

No, he probably never seriously engaged in anything, let alone law.

He had entered Korea University by sheer luck after repeating his studies, stumbling into a department that had a vacancy.

And when he came to law school, it was only because he had miraculously gotten in by guessing six questions right on the Law School Admission Test that he had taken carelessly.

He was a guy with an almost bizarre amount of luck.

Then, was it luck that he was able to come up with a plausible answer this time as well?

But this wasn't a multiple-choice question, and it was highly unlikely that someone could write a good essay-type answer that required a long description by luck.

It was like saying that if you let a monkey randomly hit a typewriter, you would get a complete translation of Don Quixote.

Suddenly, Park Yoo-seung during his free time, whom he had seen from afar, flashed through Professor Kang Chang-soo’s mind again.

The guy who had his head buried in the book, flipping through the pages like he was possessed...

What kind of expression was he wearing at that time?

‘Ah, that’s it.’

Park Yoo-seung boldly flipped to the next page of the test paper.

There, was the only ‘trap’ question in this test, which Professor Kang Chang-soo had written himself.

At first glance, it seemed like a case where one had to review fraud by a third party according to Article 110, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Code.

But, in reality, it was an issue where the fraudster should be seen as an agent by implied authorization, not a third party, and the fraud of Article 110, Paragraph 1 should be reviewed.

This type was something that was only covered as basic material during the bar exam days.

It was not an issue to throw at prospective freshmen who hadn’t even entered law school yet.

Moreover, since the other problems were designed to be easily solved as long as you knew the legal principles without twisting them, it was even more malicious because it was likely that they wouldn't suspect the existence of the trap itself.

It wasn’t a question that was meant to be answered correctly in the first place.

It was meant to remind them that there was still a long way to go, so they should have confidence, but not become arrogant.

A problem that could never be solved by luck. Park Yoo-seung put his pen to it.

‘…What answer are you going to come up with?’

Park Yoo-seung let out a soft sigh after reading the problem.

And then.

‘…What?’

He quickly wrote down four or five lines of answers and then submitted it to the podium and left the testing room.

Professor Kang Chang-soo hastily moved his cane and headed towards the podium. He quickly found Park Yoo-seung’s answer sheet and unfolded it.

The sentence that was clearly written on the last line.

• …Considering the circumstances, C is not a mere assistant or employee, but an agent of A. Therefore, according to the precedents, the principal does not need to know or be able to know about the fraudulent act of an agent or a person who can be identified with the principal. Thus, B can cancel this contract based on Article 110, Paragraph 1.

‘It’s the correct answer….’

Only then did Kang Chang-soo remember what kind of expression Park Yoo-seung had when he was looking at ‘The Knot of Civil Law’.

He was, smiling.