I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 19

『 Translator – Divinity 』

As soon as I opened the classroom door, I was greeted by familiar faces.

“Oh, you’re doing the Legal Clinic too?”

Yoo Tae-woon waved his hand in greeting.

“Because of my advisor.”

“Ah, Professor Jang Yong-hwan? I heard he tells you to try out different things, and it seems to be true.”

“What about you?”

“Me? Well, I thought practicing consultations and writing legal briefs might be helpful when applying for law firm internships.”

It wasn’t a bad idea.

The tasks given during internship programs at large law firms were ultimately about finding information and writing opinion letters.

The essence of it wasn’t that different from the activities in the Legal Clinic.

Of course, due to its nature, the Legal Clinic mainly dealt with everyday legal relationships related to the lives of ordinary people.

On the other hand, internship tasks at law firms were more closely related to major cases like corporate law or capital market law.

So, although the focus was a bit different, it was true that this kind of experience itself was significantly helpful.

“That’s great. With you here, there will be a lot of people to learn from.”

“With you here, you say.”

I turned my head in the direction Yoo Tae-woon pointed.

Indeed, the participants in this Legal Clinic were quite impressive.

The first one who caught my eye was Jeong Min-sik, the third-ranked student in the first year, sitting at his desk and stuffing a handful of chocolate into his mouth.

He seemed to be glued to his smartphone, but the screen displayed a PDF file of a collection of past exam questions.

But that PDF version never came out.

If he scanned it all manually, that was impressive dedication.

As I was watching him in admiration, Jeong Min-sik suddenly looked up and our eyes met.

He frowned as if he had seen something disgusting, and clicked his tongue.

‘What’s with him all of a sudden?’

While I was dumbfounded, Jeong Min-sik buried his head in the collection of past exam questions again.

Someone approached him and greeted him.

“You’re here early.”

“You’re the one who’s late. There are only five minutes left.”

“Haha. I was buying this.”

Despite Jeong Min-sik’s nagging, Shin Seo-joon just smiled and took something out of the bag.

It was coffee with the logo of a famous chain store.

“You must be sleepy after dinner, so have this.”

“…Why didn’t you say so earlier.”

Jeong Min-sik finally scratched his head awkwardly and received the coffee.

Even in the original story, Shin Seo-joon was the type to take good care of his people.

He repeatedly showed small acts of kindness to keep them by his side, and then showed that image to others, making them want to join him.

Indeed, even now, many female students in the classroom were looking at Jeong Min-sik with envy.

Well, maybe it was just his looks.

Anyway, with talented people gathered together, a crowd began to form around them.

It was only natural, as both of them were already famous figures within the school.

“Hi Seo-joon! Did you check out the lecture I mentioned?”

“That lecturer was pretty good. The explanations were detailed like the ones in the Criminal Law for Police class, so it was good for reviewing.”

“Hehe, right! But how long are you going to keep using honorifics?”

“I’m comfortable with this. Haha.”

Despite the gentle drawing of boundaries, the female student wasn’t discouraged and kept talking to him.

Starting with her, people gathered one by one, and the topic of conversation eventually shifted to grades and rankings.

That’s just how law school students were.

“But both of you are seriously amazing. First and third place at the entrance ceremony, first and third place in the first evaluation, and first and third place in the overall ranking. It never changes.”

“Look at Jeong Min-sik. He’s still looking at multiple-choice O/X questions on his phone. There’s a reason for everything.”

“Seo-joon is still first even though he plays tennis, goes to parties, and does everything.”

“He’s… just on a different level.”

“You flatter me. I’m just a little more familiar with it because I’ve seen it before.”

It seemed friendly, but there was a subtle atmosphere of ranking even among them, placing Shin Seo-joon a notch above Jeong Min-sik.

Just now, I clearly saw Jeong Min-sik’s expression momentarily crumple.

Jeong Min-sik had mixed feelings towards Shin Seo-joon. He was happy to be acknowledged, but at the same time, there was also a gloomy sense of inferiority that he couldn’t catch up no matter how hard he tried.

Knowing this, the reason Shin Seo-joon kept Jeong Min-sik by his side was because he saw that this sense of inferiority was the driving force behind Jeong Min-sik’s growth.

After all, a competent person is useful.

Even in this Legal Clinic scene, the gap between the two was clearly evident.

When the first client’s consultation call came in, Jeong Min-sik eagerly tried to respond but froze in front of the completely unfamiliar situation.

On the other hand, Shin Seo-joon immediately grasped the main point of the case and saw that the issue required expert review.

After appeasing the client, he calmly handed over the matter to the professors to seek a solution.

‘It was the nursing home fall case, right? It was interesting.’

It was a passage I had read and reread countless times, almost memorizing it.

I had thought about how I would have answered, and even looked up precedents and organized my thoughts to leave comments.

Thanks to that, even at this moment, the solution vividly came to mind, step by step.

Just as I was about to reminisce and fall into thought,

“Oh, is everyone here? Shall we begin soon?”

The door clicked open, and Vice Dean Choi Sung-chul entered.

Even though his tone was informal and friendly, I shouldn’t be fooled.

It was all calculated to create an image of being ‘approachable’.

“It’s the first time seeing my face for most of you, right? My name is Choi Sung-chul, and I’m the vice dean. I’m in charge of the Legal Clinic, Commercial Law, Corporate Law, and Capital Market Law. Those who graduated from the business school might have seen me in undergraduate elective classes. Like Corporate Law.”

“Let’s see,” Choi Sung-chul said, looking towards the students.

His eyes scanned each and every one of us, and finally stopped in front of me.

“There’s one here too.”

Choi Sung-chul let out a displeased grunt.

“This is quite surprising. Mr. Park Yoo-seung. I never thought I’d see you in law school.”

“Well, here I am.”

“The bumper of my Bentley, which you smashed while drunk, is still dangling.”

‘…Just how much trouble did this Park Yoo-seung guy cause?’

To think he even had a history of damaging a university professor’s car.

No wonder Choi Sung-chul was so emotionally invested in Park Yoo-seung’s expulsion in the original story, going beyond just school politics. There must have been this kind of backstory.

“I heard you got fifth place in the pre-law exam. That’s earth-shattering news.”

“I’ve come to my senses, though belatedly.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

His eyes seemed to weigh and measure me.

I stared back without backing down, and Choi Sung-chul subtly looked away first.

“Well, alright.”

Choi Sung-chul soon began explaining the basic procedures and rules of the Legal Clinic.

“Communication with clients will be done through the dedicated Legal Clinic phone in this classroom. Never give out your personal contact information. Understand?”

This was a rule to protect both sides.

If personal contact information was provided, there were cases where clients would call at all hours, asking legal questions or demanding responses, harassing the students.

Conversely, there were also cases where students used information they learned during consultations through personal channels to threaten clients.

Although this happened at a different law school.

“The consultation will take place over three sessions. During that time, you will request confirmation of the necessary facts from the client, provide legal advice, and submit a report to me documenting the entire process.”

Finally, Choi Sung-chul, the professor in charge, would review and supplement everything before delivering it to the client.

Shortly after the explanation, at the scheduled time, the first call from a client came in.

Ring ring. Ring ring.

Choi Sung-chul asked casually,

“Anyone want to take this?”

But no one readily volunteered. Everyone was still mentally unprepared.

“You cowards. Give it here.”

In the end, it was Jeong Min-sik who picked up the receiver.

‘This is going according to the original story.’

—Hello?

“This is the Hankuk University Law School Legal Clinic. How may I help you?”

—Oh, hello! My name is Oh Gi-tae. I work at the Hankuk University security office. Well… it’s about my father who was injured after entering a nursing home.

“Please continue.”

—Ha, just thinking about those bad guys makes my blood boil. Nursing homes are full of people who are obsessed with ripping off the elderly and their families.

“…?”

The client, Oh Gi-tae, poured out his words like a waterfall.

—Actually, I know a bit about physiognomy. That director guy had greed all over his face. No, that’s not what I meant to say. Anyway, I want to know how to punish them or get compensation.

‘The case itself is the same as in the original story.’

Even his rambling way of speaking was exactly the same as in the original story.

I calmly listened to the client’s incoherent story as Jeong Min-sik asked questions.

Then, excluding meaningless complaints and emotional expressions, I summarized the key points on a notepad.

By the end of the story, the contents of the notepad were as follows:

1. The client’s father is an elderly man who recently underwent surgery for cerebral infarction and a herniated disc and is currently recovering. He has no other age-related diseases such as dementia. Although he wasn’t completely immobile, he was admitted to a nursing home because there was no one to care for him at home.

2. On the day the hot water supply was cut off due to internal construction at the nursing home, after the caregiver left work, the client’s father, alone without a caregiver, was moving to the communal bath with his walker when the walker slipped, causing him to fall and sustain injuries.

3. Immediately after the accident, the nursing home treated the client’s father at their internal orthopedic clinic and contacted the client, informing him that ‘there was a slight fracture in his shoulder, but it would heal in two months’.

4. However, about ten days after the fall, the client’s father complained of pain not in his shoulder, which was diagnosed at the orthopedic clinic, but in his pelvis. A re-examination confirmed a fracture in his pelvis.

5. The nursing home’s opinion was to ‘wait and see for now’, but the opinion of a specialist at a university hospital, which the client visited just in case, was different.
It was that ‘he needs hip surgery as soon as possible to be able to even sit’, and ‘the shoulder injury is also serious and requires artificial joint surgery’.

6. Ultimately, the client’s father underwent artificial joint surgery for both his hip and shoulder. The client suspects that the nursing home lied to downplay and conceal his father’s injuries, which worsened his condition.

—I had a bad feeling from the moment the nursing home gave their initial diagnosis. I felt like they were hiding something.

“…Wow, what is this?”

“I have no idea what to do.”

The students who were standing back murmured amongst themselves.

It was different from seeing a neatly organized problem on an exam.

It was a very unfamiliar task to extract the legal issues from a story that an ordinary person, ignorant of the law, was pouring out haphazardly.

We had done something similar in the second evaluation of the pre-law program, but even then, the original material was a court record, so it was somewhat organized.

But this was no different from a raw outpouring of grievances.

Even just filtering out unnecessary information and organizing the necessary parts, as I was doing now, wasn’t an easy task.

Moreover, the case itself was a problem.

“…What should we do about this?”

Even Jeong Min-sik, who had stepped forward enthusiastically, was at a loss, just holding the receiver.

‘In the original story, in the end, Shin Seo-joon stepped in to take control.’

“Let’s give up.”

Shin Seo-joon, who had been observing, declared curtly.

“When medical or protective institutions are involved, it becomes very difficult to prove anything. Medical lawsuits filed by individuals against institutions have a low success rate, and the process is very burdensome.”

He shook his head.

“To be honest… I don’t think this is a case that can be handled by an ordinary first-year student, or any student who hasn’t experienced actual practice, regardless of their year.”

That was true.

The case itself was so unfamiliar that it was difficult to even determine the legal issues, and we had to figure out what evidence to secure.

This kind of legal dispute was a bit much for inexperienced law school students to handle.

In the end, this case was handed over to the professors under Shin Seo-joon’s leadership, and Professor Park Soo-geun himself stepped in to resolve it.

It was an episode where the resolution process was described in relatively detailed terms, and I had admired it, thinking, “As expected of a professor.”

“Yeah, this isn’t a case we can handle at our level.”

“Min-sik, let’s politely explain and wait for another case.”

The other students also seemed to agree with Shin Seo-joon’s opinion. It was that daunting.

Seeing the consensus, Jeong Min-sik was about to speak with a resigned look when,

“Mr. Park Yoo-seung.”

Suddenly, Choi Sung-chul, who had been silent, turned the arrow towards me.

“What do you think? About this case.”