I Became a Law School Genius

Episode 18

The first week of the semester flew by in a whirlwind.

For starters, the number of classes had increased dramatically.

During the pre-law program, there was only one civil law class, but once the regular semester started, the 'General Provisions of Civil Law' from the beginning and the 'Law of Property' from the later part were each established as separate classes, doubling the amount.

And that wasn't all. I also had to properly take care of the constitutional law classes, which I had neglected until now, since they had now become regular classes.

There were even elective courses that I had to take to get the required credits, so my schedule had no choice but to become packed in an instant.

“Park Yoo-seung, what elective law are you taking?”

“International Trade Law.”

International Trade Law was the most popular elective law among those taking the bar exam.

If I had to take an elective course anyway, I wanted to take one that would be helpful for the exam.

Han Seol’s was International Law. That was also a subject with a considerable number of test-takers.

“What about Ha-roo?”

“Internet and Law.”

“……What’s that?”

“I don’t know. It was on the course registration list? They said there weren’t any midterms or finals, so I picked it right away.”

As expected of Lee Ha-roo, she was still only thinking about making things easy for herself.

Well, the pre-law program was over, so I should probably be grateful that she was even coming to class regularly.

‘Well, it’s not like there are any group evaluations now, so it doesn’t matter to me.’

Still, I had invested a lot of time in this kid, so I wanted to get something out of it.

To do that, she had to have at least some basic knowledge before the time came.

‘If I’m fast, it’ll be around the end of this month.’

That was why I was dragging her around and making her study at least a little bit.

In any case, my days were busy and fulfilling.

Every day, I would go to classes from the morning until 3 PM, and then I would go straight to the library and repeat the process of pre-studying and reviewing.

Occasionally, I would go to the arcade once to keep Lee Ha-roo’s motivation up. That was all of my leisure time.

“Isn’t that today?”

“Uh-huh. We have to fill our study quota for today first.”

“Damn it……”

I grabbed Lee Ha-roo, who was drooping like a wilting flower, and dragged her to the study room.

Han Seol had mastered the reservation competition in the meantime, so she never failed to reserve a study room.

“I’m a body that was trained by four years of hellish course registration,” she said proudly, as she put her things down across from me.

As expected, when you were friends with outstanding people, you would get some benefits.

I sank into the comfortable chair and laid out the books that I would be studying on the desk.

“Then, as always, let’s do our own thing until 8 PM.”

The current time was 3:30 PM. It was an environment where we could focus on studying for at least four and a half hours.

First, I glared at the two books that I had taken out and placed on the desk.

One was [The Knot of Civil Law].

The other was [A Summary of Criminal Law].

They were the steady-selling basic textbooks for each subject, civil law and criminal law, that I had been using until now.

“…You only look at those?”

“‘Only’ those? These guys alone are already a few thousand pages.”

“But, there are a lot of precedents that aren’t in there.”

At Han Seol’s words, there were several precedent collections piled up on her desk.

It was a mountain of books that made your jaw drop just by looking at them.

My goodness, she must be studying that much so that whenever she saw a problem, she could just blurt out the conclusion, saying, ‘Oh, this is that precedent.’

But I had no intention of doing that much.

It was my belief that there was no need to do that.

“It’s okay if they’re not there.”

“?”

“If you have a solid foundation, you can solve problems even with fact patterns that you’re seeing for the first time.”

With that, I opened [The Knot of Civil Law].

It was hard to believe that it was a book that I had bought not too long ago. The corners were worn out and tattered.

“There’s a mistake that a lot of people make when studying exam law.”

I flipped through the pages, one by one.

“And that’s studying by increasing the amount.”

It was the same during the bar exam days, and it was the same for law school students now.

Then and now, the people who were studying to become lawyers were mostly elite students from the top ranks.

They were monsters who had effortlessly chewed and swallowed the level of studying taught in high school, their school's internal exams, the mock exams by the educational authorities, or what was taught in their undergraduate studies.

That was why they were often obsessed with studying ‘until they knew everything.’

Every single word that was included in the scope of the exam had to be in their heads, and they could never encounter a problem on the exam that they were seeing for the first time.

But.

“That’s not possible in law.”

Because the volume was ridiculously large.

Even if you added up the amount of studying that you had done for three years in high school and four years in college, it would still fall short of the amount of studying that you needed to ‘perfectly’ master just one subject: civil law.

There were over 1,000 articles in the Civil Act alone.

How many theories and precedents that had been accumulated for decades would there be for each article, for each concept?

It was impossible to memorize all of that.

Not to mention, the bar exam didn't just have civil law.

There was criminal law, constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal procedure, administrative law, commercial law, and even an elective law that you had to study frantically before going into the exam.

Within how long?

Just three years.

It was an impossibly tight schedule.

If you approached it thinking that you would become a master of law, a conqueror who knew everything, you would inevitably fail.

Then, how did I, in an even shorter period of two years, pass even the second stage of the bar exam, which had a higher competition rate than the current bar exam?

“You have to go the other way around. You have to reduce the amount.”

I stopped my fingers, which had been flipping through the pages as if they were flowing with water.

The page that was open had a lot of thick underlines on some paragraphs, while other paragraphs had been crossed out entirely.

“…What is this?”

“Underlines are for past exam questions. The things that are crossed out aren’t going to come out.”

Law was a field of study with a terribly large volume.

But you couldn’t put all of that content on a test.

Even civil law, which was said to be enormous, only had three problems at most on one exam.

Let's put ourselves in the position of the test maker.

If you could only put out three problems out of all that content, what would you put out? What would you want to put out?

Of course, you would have no choice but to carefully pick out only the ‘important things.’

If that was the case, then the way to handle this thick civil law book had to change completely.

First, you had to start by establishing the system.

Starting from the sources of law at the very beginning of the general provisions of civil law, all the way to non-typical security interests at the end of the law of property.

You had to have the table of contents for every concept in your head.

“Meaning. Requirements. Effects. Major leading cases.”

However, you didn’t have to try to fill all of that table of contents with every single detail.

You had to memorize all the details of the major legal principles that were always tested, up to the most minor, recent precedents.

Since everyone else also knew them well, you had to do that much to differentiate yourself.

However, for the things that had low importance, it was enough to just add a line of explanation to each item in the table of contents.

Even if they came out on the test, everyone else wouldn’t know them either.

If you thoroughly understood the basic legal principles and applied them using a legal mindset, then any more memorization was unnecessary.

“If you divide and mark the things that you have to look at and the things that you don’t, then the amount that you have to look at when you read it again decreases drastically.”

You would mark the parts that had been tested in the past and add any new precedents. You would mercilessly erase the parts that you had to remove.

At first, it would take you weeks to finish reading one volume of Minmae while doing this work.

Then, it would take a week.

Then, it would take three days.

And then, it would take two days.

And now, after the pre-law program had ended, and as the first week of the semester was ending…

“Ha-roo.”

I picked up the 1,300-page Minmae and waved it in front of Han Seol’s eyes.

“I can read this entire book from beginning to end in one day.”

This was called single-volume consolidation learning.

Especially since I already had experience with the goshi life, the process of reducing the repetition time was fast in my case.

I had already finished the same work on [A Summary of Criminal Law], not just Minmae.

What did it matter if legal knowledge was volatile?

If the speed of pouring it in was faster than the speed of it leaking out, that was all that mattered.

Once you had laid the foundation, every time you repeated it, the legal system inside you would become more and more solid.

Originally, this was a realm that you would only reach in the third year of law school, right before the bar exam.

But if I, who had passed the second stage of the bar exam, ran at the same speed as everyone else, then how would I save face?

‘Although this is only an achievement that is limited to civil law and criminal law…’

The current me was a completely different person than the me from a month ago.

It was the culmination of my exam know-how.

It was thanks to those two treasures that I would take with me until graduation.

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s true. Ask me anything to test me.”

Han Seol took my Minmae and opened it to a random page and began to read.

“After the transfer notification of the lease deposit return claim, can the lessee’s debt that occurred be deducted from the return claim?”

“Yes, it can.”

I answered immediately.

“Article 451, paragraph 2 stipulates that you can object to the reason that occurred ‘before the transfer notification,’ so, based on the opposite interpretation, there is an issue that you can't object to the reason after the notification, right?”

I found the table of contents where the question and answer would fit in my head.

It wasn't difficult. It was a problem that I had already finished setting the address for after reading it several times.

“But it’s still possible. Originally, the lease deposit return claim is something that occurs after deducting all of the lessee’s debts that occurred up to the return of the object.”

“……That’s really impossible.”

Han Seol tore at her hair.

“Are you the same person who stayed up all night memorizing the requirements and effects of the statute of limitations a month ago?”

“It’s the power of single-volume consolidation and repeated reading.”

“I feel like I’ve become an idiot……”

Han Seol muttered, looking at the pile of precedent collections in front of her, but that was nothing but an outrageous deception.

If she had the memorization ability to stuff entire precedent collections into her head like she did, then she wouldn't have done something like this in the first place.

‘Han Seol’s method is inefficient, but if it’s possible, you can perfectly prepare for everything without any unexpected attacks.’

But if a crow-tit tried to follow a stork, its legs would be torn apart.

I was nothing but a mere mortal, not a trained memorization genius like her, so I had to compete with my know-how.

How could I be upset at this sad struggle?

I turned my gaze away from Han Seol and buried my head back into my books. I had to fill today’s quota.

After I had been immersed in studying for a while, Lee Ha-roo clapped her hands.

“Eight o’clock. Eight o’clock. Time to play games.”

It was as if she had been waiting for this moment.

“It’s already that time? Alright, let’s go.”

“Today, I will definitely win at least one round.”

“You’re still a long way off, kid.”

Han Seol also got up from her seat.

“I’ll go first.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Lee Ha-roo muttered quietly, watching Han Seol’s retreating back.

“It would be nice if Han Seol unnie could play with us too.”

“She can’t because of her curfew. If she’s late, she’ll be dragged back home right after class next time.”

“Still, though.”

Although it was unfortunate, there was nothing that I could do about other people’s family situations. Han Seol herself was also following it.

“Ah, I can’t play with you next week either.”

“Huh. Why?”

“I have another thing that I have to do.”

“……?”

* * *

“I hope you all gain diverse experiences.”

Those were the words that Jang Yong-hwan had said at the first faculty meeting at the beginning of the semester.

“If you chose to be mentored by me, it probably means that you’re interested in the prosecution. But I have no intention of raising people who are only good at studying as prosecutors. You must participate in various activities both inside and outside of the school and submit your performance records.”

As he said that, Jang Yong-hwan had burdened his mentees with a list of all of the programs and competitions that they could participate in at Korea University Law School.

Volunteer activities in areas with no lawyers.

The Zayin Moot Court Competition.

The Legal Clinic.

The Intellectual Property Law Contest.

And so on.

He said that people who did not have enough performance records would be kicked out of the mentoring group and assigned to other mentors. Of course, it wasn’t like there were only penalties.

“I’ll write letters of recommendation for the summer internship at the prosecution in the second year for those who excel.”

A sweet fruit was also promised.

The summer internship at the prosecution wasn’t something that was reflected in the prosecutor selection process itself, but it was a golden opportunity to broaden your horizons while experiencing prosecution work and making a good impression on current prosecutors.

For me, who was aiming to become a prosecutor, it was a story that I couldn’t just let go of.

Therefore, I had to participate in as many activities as possible.

‘Among these… I guess the Legal Clinic is the best for now.’

The Legal Clinic was a program that was run at law school under the guidance of law professors or practitioners.

It was quite popular among the top students because it allowed them to gain practical experience by conducting consultations and providing legal advice for clients.

Requests were made through the Legal Clinic window that was set up on the law school website.

The students would gain experience, and the clients would receive free legal help. It was a win-win structure.

Even though the students were the main agents, the opinion letters were written after the supervising professor had reviewed them, so there was no need to worry about imperfect services.

In the first place, it was free, and it was enough as a reference material before seriously going through the litigation process.

It was a course where you could continuously earn performance records with each consultation.

Since it was an activity that was done at school, at most once or twice a week, the burden wasn’t too great.

‘The only problem is… that the supervising professor for the Legal Clinic is Vice Dean Choi Sung-chul.’

I closed my eyes for a moment and recalled Vice Dean Choi Sung-chul, who was described in the original story.

In a word, he was a ‘capable opportunist.’

It was said that artisans came to resemble the tools that they used.

Choi Sung-chul, who had been active in the international financial dispute arena, was a very calculating type, and he only evaluated people based on the profit and loss that they brought to him.

Even after coming to Korea University Law School as a professor to chase after fame, that tendency hadn’t changed at all.

To him, students were divided into two categories.

The category that was helpful for his performance records and the category that was not.

He didn’t give even a sliver of attention to the latter.

‘That’s why he’s at odds with Dean Kang Chang-soo.’

Although he was capable enough to reach the position of vice dean, Choi Sung-chul and Law School Dean Kang Chang-soo were in a near-antagonistic relationship.

From their educational views to the internal factional fights, they were butting heads and setting up rivalries in every aspect.

Even now, Choi Sung-chul was probably watching for an opportunity to push out Kang Chang-soo and take the position of dean.

In the original story, he was the person who most actively promoted disciplinary action when Park Yoo-seung was expelled.

He wasn’t someone that I particularly wanted to get involved with.

But should I be unable to make soy sauce just because I was afraid of maggots?

The current me didn’t have any reason to be afraid, so I couldn’t give up the honey pot of accumulating performance records just to avoid Choi Sung-chul.

And so, I visited the lecture hall that had been assigned for the Legal Clinic on the first day of activities.