By any measure, the U.S. is a litigious country. Car wrecks, slip and falls, product liability - all of this and much more keeps our courtrooms busy and our insurance industry profitable - not to mention the byproduct of employment for hundreds of thousands of attorneys.
Korea is very different. Interwoven brick and occasional cobblestone walkways are almost always uneven and a bit of a hazard to the unwary. Still, they are part of the charm and beauty of Korea. I'm told that liability lawsuits are almost unheard of if someone slips and falls. It is part of normal life and not a big deal. The boys and I were invited to a birthday party the other day for one of their friends here in the faculty housing. We started the evening out with trampolines, followed up by a trip to McDonald's for bacon burgers and incredibly delicious homemade bacon cupcakes (our boys are already insisting that mom get the recipe), and ending up with a trip to the batting cages with an adjoining driving range for young golfers. Refreshingly, there were no warning and disclaimer messages posted everywhere. No need for helmets at the batting cages (really they are a protection from misdirected pitches by real human beings, not machines). All of it was perfectly sensible and enormously fun for the boys. I doubt that any of the businesses had a bit of liability insurance and they probably really didn't need any in this country where common sense seems to prevail when dealing with most common hazards in life. I'm told when conflict arises, most disputes are settled informally relying on common bonds of family, community or business to settle differences without resorting to the courts.
It is very difficult to become a lawyer in Korea where admission to law school is very restrictive and, reportedly, less than 1% of the takers pass the Korean bar exam. Surprisingly, hiring an attorney in Korea is not necessarily an expensive endeavor. Susan had to have a translated document certified by a Korean notary public. The notary needed to have an attorney review some aspect of the document. The attorney's review was included in the really modest price charged by the notary. I'm sure that is not always true in Korea, but I cannot image such inexpensive service if the document had to be reviewed by an American attorney. My suspicion is that most attorneys in Korea work for either the government or large companies that engage in international business (probably countering the hoards of U.S. attorneys employed by other nations). All of this makes me yearn for the era of the "handshake" deal where integrity was the primary underpinning of business affairs.
All this reminds me of an incident over the Chusok holiday about a month ago. We rented a 12 passenger van to see as much of Korea as we could during the 5 day break.. The car performed beautifully and we were very happy with it. After the rental company picked up the car at the university, an employee drove back to see us. It seems the car had some fairly serious damage to a tire and rim from having hit some object. It would take $390 to make the needed repairs. This was a surprise to us, because I didn't remember hitting anything that would have caused the damage. Still, I did remember hitting a flexible plastic pole when I needed to make a sudden lane change to stay on the proper roadway due to a lane spit in the highway. Perhaps there was a metal device holding the plastic pole to the roadway that might have caused the damage. In any event, the damage was there and the employee was quite certain it must have happened during the rental period. We decided to trust the rental company that had a long a good relationship providing vehicles to the university. They knew we were part of the university and we paid for the damage. It's the Korean way with their common bond of using relationships to resolve disputes in this fascinating country.
Ken Chinn
It is very difficult to become a lawyer in Korea where admission to law school is very restrictive and, reportedly, less than 1% of the takers pass the Korean bar exam. Surprisingly, hiring an attorney in Korea is not necessarily an expensive endeavor. Susan had to have a translated document certified by a Korean notary public. The notary needed to have an attorney review some aspect of the document. The attorney's review was included in the really modest price charged by the notary. I'm sure that is not always true in Korea, but I cannot image such inexpensive service if the document had to be reviewed by an American attorney. My suspicion is that most attorneys in Korea work for either the government or large companies that engage in international business (probably countering the hoards of U.S. attorneys employed by other nations). All of this makes me yearn for the era of the "handshake" deal where integrity was the primary underpinning of business affairs.
All this reminds me of an incident over the Chusok holiday about a month ago. We rented a 12 passenger van to see as much of Korea as we could during the 5 day break.. The car performed beautifully and we were very happy with it. After the rental company picked up the car at the university, an employee drove back to see us. It seems the car had some fairly serious damage to a tire and rim from having hit some object. It would take $390 to make the needed repairs. This was a surprise to us, because I didn't remember hitting anything that would have caused the damage. Still, I did remember hitting a flexible plastic pole when I needed to make a sudden lane change to stay on the proper roadway due to a lane spit in the highway. Perhaps there was a metal device holding the plastic pole to the roadway that might have caused the damage. In any event, the damage was there and the employee was quite certain it must have happened during the rental period. We decided to trust the rental company that had a long a good relationship providing vehicles to the university. They knew we were part of the university and we paid for the damage. It's the Korean way with their common bond of using relationships to resolve disputes in this fascinating country.
Ken Chinn
No comments:
Post a Comment