The National Police Agency said Wednesday that its plans to employ and dispatch graduates from law schools as investigators.

The NPA signed an agreement with the Korean Association of Law Schools to mutually cooperate to nurture the graduates amid the fast changing law industry. Law schools were introduced in 2007.

The schools were opened as part of the government’s efforts to increase diversity among law practitioners and to address the issue of vested interests and exclusivity in the legal community.

The police are mulling a cut in the entrance quota for the Police University to hire legal experts for investigation teams.

They also offered to provide practical training for the graduates once they are employed.

In response, the law schools pledged to run courses on police management and investigation practices.

“The fairness and reliability for investigation is expected to be enhanced when the lawyers work as investigators at police stations,” the commissioner general of the National Police Agency Kim Ki-yong said

“The concerns over those who graduated from specific colleges, such as Korean National Police University, dominating high profile police seats will be resolved with the agreement to diversify the route to high-echelon posts.”

NPA said it would soon confirm further details such as the scale of lawyer recruitment and the period.


By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)