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Above: Hon. Choon Geun Choi, who was the first visiting scholar to Santa Clara Law from the Korean Ministry of Justice. He is a former judge at the Seoul District Court. He is clapping here in response to his election as chair of the Santa Clara Law Seoul Alumni group. Right, dinner in Seoul with directors, faculty, internship supervisors, and families of the Santa Clara Law Summer Program.
SCU lawyers in Korea, Hong worked with Jimenez and Dean Polden to set up the first annual alumni reunion, held in Seoul in October 2011. Besides connecting 25 alumni of SCU–Korea programs with lawyers and professors, the reunion was a “testament to SCU’s ongoing commitment to developing and strengthening its global network in and throughout Korea’s dynamic legal community,” says Hong.
Santa Clara Law has educated, through its J.D. and LL.M programs, numerous Korean attorneys who have returned to Korea to take on important, high-profile roles.
After graduating in 1985, Ahn returned to Korea to teach at Seoul National University. Prior to enrolling in Santa Clara Law, Ahn had been involved in Korea’s turbulent struggle for democracy, which culminated in 1988, with a democratic election after a quarter-century of military rule. He served as dean from 2002 to 2004, then rejoined Santa Clara Law as a visiting scholar in 2005. Ahn is a highly regarded scholar in both Korean and U.S. law and a world leader in human rights. He has been involved “directly or indirectly in most major projects of legal reform in Korea,” says Jimenez. Hae-Suk Suh, a.k.a. Hazel Lee ’88, became one of just 41 female members of the Korean parliament, the National Assembly, in 2004. She left a Seoul law firm she co-founded, Wuhyun Law P.C., where she specialized in international transactions, for the opportunity to contribute to making laws in 20 santa clara law | spring/summer 2012
the areas of telecommunications, biotech, and health care. She served on the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information and Telecommunications Committee; its National Policy Committee; its Special Committee on Climate Change; and its Special Committee on Korea-U.S. Fair Trade Agreement. She also served as a spokesperson of the then ruling party (Uri Party). Suh returned to private practice in 2008, and currently “heads up a corporate team for one of Seoul’s top law firms, Logos Law,” says Jimenez. Professor Kim estimates that approximately 80 Korean lawyers, visiting scholars, and students have studied or taught at Santa Clara Law.
Even without studying in Korea, Santa Clara Law students have the opportunity to develop skills in international law and cross-cultural competency through Professor Jimenez’s International Business Negotiations course.
Over Skype, Santa Clara Law students meet law students at Seoul National University. The students are given a scenario, such as a software license to negotiate, and begin emailing drafts of agreements back and forth and discussing terms over Skype. Finally, the Santa Clara Law students travel to Korea to complete the final negotiations (often funded by Santa Clara Law summer program alumni).