I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 3

『 Translator – Divinity 』

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

In the early part of the original, Park Yoo-seung, relying on this connection, acted even more arrogantly.

However, Professor Kang always saw him as an eyesore and a potential risk that could tarnish the family name.

Indeed, Park Yoo-seung, consumed by jealousy towards Shin Seo-joon, ends up causing trouble that goes too far and gets expelled from Hankuk University Law School.

To avoid following the same path as him, the answer was to simply stay out of sight and quietly focus on studying.

As I subtly lowered my head back into the book, Professor Kang Chang-soo seemed to lose interest and looked away from me.

Soon, with the unique thump, thump sound of his cane, he walked towards the podium.

“Attention. Attention, please.”

The students, who were scattered and chatting, all looked towards the podium at once.

“Before we officially begin the pre-law course, I will briefly guide you through the proceedings. 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 scholar’s voice was very calm.

“Additionally, there may be assignments given out during class that need to be solved in teams. This is a process to assess your current level, so please participate with sincerity.”

‘Assess your current level,’ he says. It’s probably not just that. If my memory serves me right…

“Also, based on the combined scores of the aforementioned process, regular semester course registration and advisor selection will proceed. In addition, the top 5 students will be awarded a living expenses scholarship of 3 million won as an encouragement for outstanding performance.”

As expected.

“This is separate from the merit-based scholarship announced at the time of admission, and the same person can receive both. Any questions?”

The scholarship doesn’t matter. Park Yoo-seung had more money than he could ever need.

Course registration wasn’t a major issue either.

In “In the Law School,” the faculty at Hankuk University Law School were all depicted as having the best skills and experience.

There was no way to go wrong by taking any class assigned.

In the first place, studying is something you have to do on your own.

However, advisor selection was a different matter.

This is because the influence of an advisor is significant depending on the career path one aims for.

For example, let’s say there’s a student who wants to join “Jin & Ahn,” the best law firm in Korea.

Then, they should aim for a spot as an advisee of Professor Park Sung-kwang, who is from Jin & Ahn.

What kind of cover letter is needed to be selected for Jin & Ahn’s internship program that leads to full-time employment?

Also, how should one approach the tasks assigned during the internship?

Professor Park Sung-kwang had accumulated a wealth of know-how and resources regarding recruitment at Jin & Ahn.

If you want to enter the financial sector after graduation, you should seek out Professor Choi Sung-chul.

Having worked as an international financial consultant lawyer, moving between Wall Street and domestic securities firms, he often provided his advisees with opportunities to network with current professionals in the financial sector.

Like me, if you want to become a prosecutor?

Without a doubt, it’s Professor Jang Yong-hwan.

A former chief prosecutor and a master of criminal law who has served on the prosecution’s written exam committee numerous times.

The ace of Hankuk University Law School who has placed every single one of his past students who aspired to be prosecutors into the prosecution.

In the original story, Shin Seo-joon also became Professor Jang’s student.

Naturally, the competition to become Professor Jang’s student was fierce.

If I remember correctly, you had to be in the top 10% of this pre-law course.

An extremely difficult task, but…

I can do it.

If it’s me, the one who passed the second round of the bar exam in just two years.

The one who spent every day studying with bloodshot eyes, building towers of study guides and professor-written books on my desk.

The one who once chewed, swallowed, and digested a vast amount of legal knowledge more than anyone else here. I can do it.

It’s true that I’ve forgotten most of it after years of being consumed by work.

However, even if the knowledge evaporates, the know-how of handling it remains engraved in the brain.

No one here can match me in how to write an answer sheet, how to think legally.

I was confident that if I put in enough time and effort to refill what I had forgotten, I could be the best here too.

“It seems like there are none. Good. Then, let’s take the first exam now. The notice clearly stated that you should all bring your own writing utensils, right?”

The professor’s bombshell announcement made the students’ faces freeze.

A murmur spread through the room, wondering if they had misheard, unsure of what they had just heard.

“Excuse me, Professor?”

“Yes, student?”

“It’s Han Seol.”

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

“Han Seol, do you have a question?”

“Did you just say… exam?”

“Indeed, I did.”

“The notice we received stated that today’s schedule was a light orientation. To suddenly have an exam is a bit…”

In fact, Han Seol was in a rather advantageous position even if they were to take the exam now.

While other students were enjoying the last of their winter break with light hearts, she had already reviewed “Untying the Knots of Civil Law” twice and thoroughly prepared in advance.

“A bit?”

“I think there could be a problem. We haven’t officially learned anything at school yet, and there was no notice telling us to prepare for an exam…”

However, as a principled person, she had a personality that compelled her to correct anything that felt inappropriate, even if it meant she would be at a disadvantage.

Han Seol’s stubborn adherence to principles, without exception, was the reason why readers found her tiresome, and at the same time, the reason why they couldn’t hate her.

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

Professor Kang Chang-soo simply dismissed her concerns.

“It’s not a lie that this is a light orientation. Your law school life ahead will consist of endless exams, evaluations, practical training, and presentation competitions.”

“But…”

“In a way, an exam can be seen as the most accurate orientation to introduce law school,”

the old professor asserted once again.

“Don’t feel pressured and take it easy. After all, today’s exam only accounts for 10% of the total pre-law comprehensive score.”

“Now, now, let’s get started quickly.”

At his words, the administrative staff sprang into action, seating the students and distributing the exam papers and answer sheets.

Stay calm.

My current legal skills are not much different from the athletic ability of a patient who has just woken up from a coma and is training to walk.

It’s not that I intend to take the exam lightly, but today’s goal is simply to check my position and determine the direction of my future studies.

Greed is out of the question.

As I made up my mind,

“Then, let’s begin.”

The first exam at Hankuk University Law School finally commenced.

***

‘There are many excellent students this year.’

That was the conclusion Professor Kang Chang-soo reached as he walked around the exam hall.

Although he had intimidated them at the opening ceremony by saying they were a lagging group, in truth, Kang Chang-soo knew that he couldn’t expect much from freshmen who hadn’t even officially entered the school yet.

In the first place, wasn’t the law school system itself created to train applicants with various majors and experiences, not just in law, to become legal professionals?

Of course, it’s true that many law schools give some preferential treatment to applicants with legal experience during the document screening process.

Even Hankuk University Law School had selected many students with experience in the bar exam in its early years.

However, now, many young, intelligent students with potential are being selected.

Therefore, the reason for conducting the test at this point was not to see perfect answers.

It was to check whether the students had prepared during the break and whether they could adapt to an unfamiliar exam and come up with reasonable answers.

‘But this student is different.’

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

In this test, he had deliberately excluded questions that required knowledge of specific precedents.

Instead, it was composed mainly of questions with clear facts that could be easily solved if one had a precise understanding of general legal principles.

Furthermore, the scope was limited to what would be covered in the first semester.

He wanted the students to gain confidence that they could solve problems with their own legal minds, rather than perceiving law as a subject focused on memorization.

Shin Seo-joon perfectly met that expectation.

As soon as he saw the problem, he smoothly listed the relevant concepts, requirements, and effects as headings, and then applied them to the given case to derive a conclusion.

His approach showed that he had mastered everything that would be covered in the first semester.

Professor Kang Chang-soo, who was walking among the students, stopped in front of Han Seol this time.

‘This student has also studied hard.’

If Shin Seo-joon was the type to utilize legal principles, Han Seol had memorized an overwhelmingly large number of precedents and made them her weapon.

The problems in this exam were all original creations from Professor Kang Chang-soo’s mind.

Yet, somehow, Han Seol amazingly found precedents that exactly corresponded to the facts of each problem and attached them to her answer sheet.

There were some mistakes, such as a lack of understanding of the precedents or slightly missing the point of the issue, but overall, she was deriving the correct conclusions.

Although lacking compared to the two students, other students also showed generally good performance.

Many students, even if they couldn’t write well about areas where they lacked knowledge, were able to clearly write down what they did know.

It was clear that this was a class with the potential to grow significantly if taught properly after admission.

‘On the other hand, that guy…’

Kang Chang-soo’s satisfied expression suddenly hardened.

It was because he had reached the seat next to his nephew, Park Yoo-seung, who was an embarrassment wherever he went.

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

The multiple-choice questions in this test were composed of easy options that anyone who had glanced over the relevant content once would not get wrong.

Shin Seo-joon, as if to show off, chose the correct answers to all the questions in just 15 minutes, and Han Seol, whose strength was memorization, achieved the feat of completing the multiple-choice section in a mere 10 minutes.

Other students also seemed to have done some preparation for the first semester, as they didn’t seem to have much difficulty solving the multiple-choice questions, even if they stumbled a bit.

But this Park Yoo-seung?

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

It took him only three minutes to check the answer to the last question.

In other words, he had guessed every single answer.

Seeing him reading “Untying the Knots of Civil Law” alone during the break earlier, Kang Chang-soo had briefly hoped that maybe he had changed his ways.

But it seemed that was just a vain hope.

There was no way a guy who couldn’t even solve the easy multiple-choice questions could write a decent answer to the essay questions.

He considered turning away, but then, thinking it was his last duty to his bloodline, Kang Chang-soo decided to observe a little longer.

‘…Hmm?’

However, contrary to his expectations, Park Yoo-seung’s answer wasn’t bad.

Although he frowned deeply every time he looked at a question and fumbled through the law book to find simple information, the answers he wrote down were all correct.

Moreover, looking at the structure of his answers alone, it was almost perfect.

Even during his bar exam days, it was rare to see an answer with such a clear and logical structure.

It was just that the content filled under those headings was written vaguely in his own words, not in the precise language of textbooks or precedents, which left a bad impression.

‘It’s as if… someone who studied law a long time ago and mastered it wrote the answers in their own words because they forgot the specific expressions.’

But that couldn’t be.

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

No, he probably hadn’t seriously engaged with anything, let alone law.

He got into Hankuk University after retaking the entrance exam and luckily stumbling into a department with a vacancy.

And he got into law school by miraculously guessing six questions correctly on the Legal Aptitude Test he barely studied for.

He was a guy with an absurd amount of luck.

So, was it just luck again that allowed him to come up with a plausible structure for his answers?

But how could anyone, let alone him, write a decent essay answer, which requires lengthy descriptions, by relying on luck? It was like saying a monkey randomly hitting a typewriter produced a complete translation of Don Quixote.

[TL/N: Don Quixote, a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. Considered a founding work of Western literature.]

Suddenly, the image of Park Yoo-seung during break time, seen from afar, flashed through Professor Kang Chang-soo’s mind.

The guy who was engrossed in his book, frantically turning pages…

What kind of expression did he have then?

‘Ah, that’s…’

Park Yoo-seung confidently turned to the next page of the exam paper.

There, printed was the only ‘trap’ question in this exam, which Professor Kang Chang-soo had personally devised.

At first glance, it seemed like a case that required examining fraud by a third party under Article 110, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Act.

However, the real issue was to consider fraud under Article 110, Paragraph 1, by viewing the perpetrator of the fraud not as a third party but as an agent under implied authority.

This type of question was only covered as a basic concept during the bar exam era.

It wasn’t an issue to throw at prospective students who hadn’t even entered law school yet.

Moreover, since the other questions were designed to be solvable as long as one had a proper understanding, without any convoluted legal principles, it was even more malicious as there was a high chance they wouldn’t even suspect the existence of a trap.

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

It was meant to convey the message to be confident but not arrogant, as they still had a long way to go.

A question that couldn’t be solved by luck. To that question, Park Yoo-seung pointed his pen.

‘…How do you intend to answer that?’

Park Yoo-seung read the question and let out a low exclamation.

And then.

‘…What?’

He scribbled down four or five lines of an answer in an instant, then submitted it to the podium and left the exam hall.

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

The sentence was clearly written on the last line.

— …Considering the circumstances, C is not a mere assistant or employee but an agent of A. As precedents state that fraudulent acts of an agent, who can be identified with the principal, do not require the principal to have known or been able to know about it,

B can cancel the contract in this case based on Article 110, Paragraph 1.

‘It’s… the correct answer…’

Only then did Kang Chang-soo remember the expression Park Yoo-seung had while looking at “Untying the Knots of Civil Law.”

He was smiling.