Yar! The Sex Lawyer Opens His Practice
In broad daylight, Suk Ho-pil cracked open a bottle of soju. His situation was utterly pitiful.
"Back when I had a private office inside the firm, I'd hide a bottle of Hibiki in the bookshelf and sneak a drink whenever I felt like it."
"That's the dream, isn't it? The ultimate lawyer fantasy."
"Until the new law firm I build actually succeeds, I'll endure it all with a hungry spirit. Here, have a glass."
"Thank you, Mr. Rice Farmer."
Park Tae-gi accepted the drink without hesitation.
"Kyaa, it's sweet."
To Suk Ho-pil, the bitter soju tasted strangely sweet. It had been a long time since he'd tasted this cheap industrial alcohol. Calling this stuff liquor would be an insult to real alcohol.
"By the way, Attorney-nim, why open as a corporation instead of a private solo office?"
"You don't even know that? Lawyers can't qualify as simplified taxpayers. We have to file using full double-entry bookkeeping no matter what."
"I'm not too familiar with accounting."
"Until we get the systems in place, you and I will have to handle the books together. That means bank runs too."
"It'd be nice if a clerk joined us."
"Why?"
"Because the dream of every small business is a neat female clerk. The kind who wears stockings."
Watching Tae-gi's lecherous gaze, a memory from the past surfaced.
"Tae-gi, you need to be careful with everything you do. On the surface alone, you have the perfect face of a sex offender. I'm not joking."
"My apologies."
"I don't plan on turning our office into a sausage fest either. But if a fox-like clerk comes in, watch yourself."
"Of course. Those flower snakes. I can't stand Korean women."
Even the Korean women can't stand you either.
Suk Ho-pil looked at him with a touch of pity.
"Still, Korean women can be vicious. No wonder international marriages keep rising."
"The legal world that let false accusations run wild is the one that needs to reflect. I believe in you, Attorney Suk."
"Believe in what?"
"That you'll set justice straight."
"I'll do my best to live up to that. Looking forward to working with you."
Suk Ho-pil gave a light bow.
"Wh-why are you being like this? To a lowly creature like me."
"Lowly creature? What, you're not even human now? Your self-esteem really has hit rock bottom."
The moment the words left his mouth, Ho-pil felt a sting. It sounded like he was describing himself.
"Hahaha, of course not. Here, let me pour you another."
Park Tae-gi filled Suk Ho-pil's empty glass.
"Anyway, we'll recruit plenty of lawyers and grow Sukphil into something big."
"You're naming the firm Sexphil, right?"
"Why?"
"You said you were specializing in sex crimes on the way to the restaurant."
"Being a sex crime specialist is one thing, but naming the firm Sexphil outright would be too low-class."
"Then do you have a better idea?"
"Sexphil... Sexphil... Yeah. Sukphil. Since my name is Suk Ho-pil, we'll go with Sukphil."
Suk Ho-pil imitated Park Tae-gi's clumsy speech pattern.
"Hahaha! I like it. Law Firm Sukphil. It sounds like it's short for sex appeal, and you took two letters from Attorney Suk Ho-pil's name. Like those two-character legal terms."
"The interpretation is better than the original dream."
"By the way, you really found a prime spot for the office, Attorney-nim."
"Second floor of a bean sprout hangover soup place, one block off the main Seocho-dong road. You won't find better value than this."
At first he'd considered a shared office. But he wanted to avoid that at all costs. A lawyer in a shared office lacked dignity. Most who settled for them treated the space as temporary. Even if they started there, they soon joined a small firm through connections or left for an in-house counsel position. In the worst cases, it was female lawyers in their mid-forties or older who couldn't even land an in-house role at a public institution and used shared offices as their practice. Those women had no strong motivation, no seniors to pull strings for them, no juniors to push forward. Having thrived on solo play, they lost their edge even as in-house counsel, quit without understanding their own limitations, and lingered in shared offices chasing petty cases. The kind of work judicial scriveners or administrative agents usually handled, or the dirty business of mass-filing suits over cyber defamation and anonymous uploads.
"Women in law who thought studying hard was enough find themselves screwed if they can't become judges or prosecutors."
"Come on, Attorney-nim. The real worst are the ones who get married and shove their law license in a drawer."
"Hahaha! Park Tae-gi, I can tell you've really scraped around the Seocho-dong scene."
"I know an auntie lawyer who got married and emigrated to America."
"After all that suffering to become a legal professional, what was the point of the studying?"
"What else? It was just groundwork for marrying someone with a green card."
"We can't get complacent either. I'm not a big-firm rice farmer anymore."
"Some lawyers go around bragging to everyone that they're from a big firm, you know?"
"Only idiots do that."
For a moment, irritation flared inside Suk Ho-pil. Those were exactly the people he despised most.
"Why do you say that?"
"When big-firm alumni promote their background, it's always the same story."
"How so?"
"They never made partner, just followed senior lawyers' orders, lacked real skill, and were even worse at bringing in business. So they left the firm and drowned in self-delusion."
"Can't argue with that. The truly successful partners who leave usually bring their own faction and open a decent-sized office."
"Those people don't advertise themselves as big-firm alumni. They promote their actual career achievements."
"Right, right. Oh! That's it."
"What?"
"These days, tons of lawyers quit complaining about low judge and prosecutor salaries, then turn around and promote themselves as former judges or former prosecutors."
"Ugh, that's just as pathetic."
Suk Ho-pil glanced around cautiously. They were in the middle of Seocho-dong at a sundae guk restaurant. Even though mealtime had passed, someone might be listening from a corner and feeling the sting.
Fortunately, the only other customer was a woman in a black off-shoulder top with an X-shaped strap choker, boldly exposing her shoulders in the early May heat.
Huh? What the hell. She couldn't be a lawyer, could she?
The provocatively dressed woman glared at Suk Ho-pil and Park Tae-gi while spooning up her sundae guk.
"There are way too many lawyers. Pumping out seventeen hundred a year? That's ridiculous. They should increase the number of doctors instead."
"Mm. I might have spoken too harshly. I'm not in any position to worry about others or look down on them. Got a little arrogant there."
Ho-pil's own self-esteem was currently scraping the bottom. Unfair or not, one day he had suddenly been accused of sexual harassment and forced to resign as if being kicked out.
"But why didn't you clear your name all the way?"
"Clear what?"
"The truth doesn't sink. I don't understand why you didn't prove you never sexually harassed anyone."
"I was extremely drunk that day. Mixing my drinks was the problem."
"And?"
"I was completely unconscious, but the CCTV caught me clinging to that woman, Lee Chae-a. With no clearer evidence, they offered a lenient disposition if I left quietly. I had no choice but to take it."
"Aish! Then it really was sexual harassment. You should count yourself lucky you weren't sued for actual assault. Still, you didn't touch her chest or ass, right..."
"What do you take me for? Of course not. I know people call me Sex-phil instead of Suk Ho-pil. But I'm not the kind of man who does that against a woman's will."
"I believe you. They might have used AI to fake the video. Hehehe."
Suddenly, a thought struck him like lightning.
"Why didn't I think of that... Tae-gi, you're actually pretty sharp."
"You handled high-minded stuff like fair trade, corporate advisory, and government relations, Attorney-nim. But Seocho-dong is mostly criminal law."
"A true criminal law specialist."
"Besides, I was the one who got falsely accused of rape and spent months in detention. Luckily you proved that damn woman fabricated everything and saved me."
"Why call your ex-girlfriend a damn woman? I'm the one who's more wronged. I didn't do anything with Lee Chae-a."
"My ex is the bigger bitch. It was a non-indictment disposition, yar."
"Yar yar. That's trending these days, huh."
"You've entered the young-and-old-man territory. Look at you using 'yar' without even knowing what it means."
"Ugh. You're pretty drunk. Let's head back to the office. We need to finish setting up because we're opening tomorrow."
After drinking soju in broad daylight, they stepped out of the restaurant. The streets were lined with signs for law firms and private attorney offices. But Suk Ho-pil didn't feel intimidated. As long as I do well, it'll be fine.
The two of them, united in purpose, returned straight to the office and cleaned until evening. They had already brought in secondhand furniture the moment they signed the lease. An electric height-adjustable desk, reclining chairs that tilted all the way back, and even a Rakuraku bed.
"Starting tomorrow I need to handle the homepage and LawTalk myself."
"Leave it to me."
"No, no. The Attorney Act has been strengthened lately. I have to do it personally."
"Then what should I do?"
"What else? Just do the legal assistant work properly. That's not as easy as it sounds."
"Yes! Of course. I already posted the job opening you made on the Korean Bar Association bulletin board."
"Quick with your hands."
"My hands are faster than my eyes."
"You a gambler or something?"
"Hahaha, ahahaha."
The two were exchanging lame old-man jokes when it happened.
Ting-a-ling—
The law office door opened and someone stepped inside. Both Suk Ho-pil and Park Tae-gi turned at the same time, their eyes widening in surprise.