KISDI Hosts Special Seminar on AI and Legal Tech (detail)

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KISDI Hosts Special Seminar on AI and Legal Tech
Experts Discuss the Future of Legal Tech and Legal and Institutional Challenges in the AI Era

Key Takeaways

- Distinguishing legal information services from professional legal judgment
- Balancing the use of judicial decision data with the protection of judicial sovereignty
- Calling for discussions on enacting a Legal Tech Promotion Act

| Date: July 21, 2026 (Tue.), 14:00–17:00
| Venue: Grand Conference Room, 10th Floor, Post Tower, Seoul
| Co-hosted by: The Korea AI Law Society, the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI), and the Digital Platform Policy Forum

The Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI, President Sangkyu Rhee) co-hosted the Special Seminar on AI and Legal Tech with the Korea AI Law Society and the Digital Platform Policy Forum on July 21 at Post Tower in Seoul.

The seminar examined the current state and future direction of legal technology (legal tech) as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform legal services. It also explored potential risks, policy responses, and strategies for fostering the development of legal tech in ways that benefit both the public and legal professionals. Experts representing industry, the legal profession, academia, and civil society discussed the implications of the convergence of AI and legal services and its policy implications.

In the opening session, Ryu Je-myung, Second Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, and Sangkyu Rhee, President of KISDI, delivered welcoming remarks emphasizing the importance of innovation in legal services in the AI era and the need to establish a safe and trustworthy foundation for AI adoption. Choi Kyung-jin, President of the Korea AI Law Society, delivered the opening address, stressing the importance of developing an AI legal framework and a legal tech ecosystem that balance technological innovation, the rule of law, and the protection of citizens' rights.

In the first presentation, Lee Jin, Chief Executive Officer of Law&Company, spoke on "The Present and Future of AI-Driven Legal Tech." He explained that legal tech is becoming a core infrastructure for legal services as AI evolves beyond information retrieval and content generation toward agentic AI capable of autonomously performing legal tasks. He identified three key challenges for advancing legal tech in the AI era: balancing the use of judicial decision data with judicial sovereignty, establishing institutional standards for lawyers' use and verification of AI, and cultivating a new generation of legal professionals capable of understanding and validating AI systems.

Regarding the disclosure of judicial decisions, he proposed improving the existing online access system in a phased manner rather than fully opening bulk datasets. He noted that, given the current market structure in which global AI companies possess significant advantages in capital, computing resources, and international distribution networks, unrestricted large-scale disclosure of judicial decision data could enable overseas AI providers to absorb such data more rapidly and extensively than domestic companies. This, he suggested, could lead to excessive reliance on foreign AI infrastructure for the accumulation and interpretation of legal information, raising concerns about judicial sovereignty. He further observed that overseas AI services are increasingly becoming the primary gateway to legal information and proposed that discussions begin on enacting a Legal Tech Promotion Act to establish an institutional foundation for the legal tech industry.

The second presentation was delivered by Kim Ki-won, Senior Vice President of the Seoul Bar Association, under the theme "The Adverse Effects of Legal Tech in the AI Era and the Role of Legal Professionals." While recognizing that generative AI-based legal tech improves the efficiency of legal practice, he pointed to structural challenges, including AI hallucinations, unclear allocation of responsibility, the potential erosion of lawyers' professional capabilities, and the standardization of legal interpretation. He argued that AI should serve as a tool to support, rather than replace, legal professionals. According to his presentation, lawyers should remain responsible for investigating and establishing facts, verifying AI-generated outputs, ensuring their reliability, developing new legal theories, and assuming ultimate professional responsibility. He also emphasized that legal services should continue to be delivered by lawyers using AI tools rather than directly by technology companies in order to safeguard judicial fairness and protect the rights and interests of citizens.

The third presentation was given by Professor Woojung Jeon of KAIST under the title "The Desirable Direction for Legal Tech Development in the AI Era." He emphasized the need to functionally distinguish between the provision of legal information and professional legal judgment in specific cases in order to clarify the scope of technological assistance and the allocation of responsibility while addressing risks such as AI hallucinations, bias, personal data breaches, and irresponsible automation. He also recommended expanding access to public legal data and judicial decisions, establishing trust infrastructure that enables AI-generated outputs to be verified through source identification and comparison with original texts, and designing a legal tech framework law that integrates industrial promotion, public data policy, user protection, and professional accountability and oversight.

The seminar concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Choi Kyung-jin, President of the Korea AI Law Society, under the theme "Advancing Legal Tech for All in the AI Era." Panelists included Judge Kwon Ji-eun of the Daegu High Court; Ahn Ki-soon, Director of the Legal AI Research Institute at Law&Company; Professor Sunyoung Oh of Soongsil University; Lee Eun-joo, Director of the AI Trustworthiness Research Center at Seoul National University; Chung Jong-gu, Managing Partner at Law Firm Roban; and Jung Ji-yeon, Secretary General of the Korea National Council of Consumer Organizations.

The panelists broadly agreed that the central challenge for legal tech in the AI era lies not in technological advancement itself, but in establishing verification mechanisms and accountability frameworks that ensure the trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. They emphasized that legal professionals should retain responsibility for final verification and accountability, while recommending measures to strengthen the reliability of public legal data, enhance AI verifiability, redesign legal education and professional training, expand public access to justice, and establish institutional frameworks and governance that balance technological innovation with legal sovereignty. They also agreed that legal tech should complement rather than replace human professional judgment, and that innovation and the public interest should be pursued through risk-based regulation and clearly defined allocation of responsibilities. Overall, the discussion concluded that sustainable legal tech in the AI era depends on the combined foundation of trustworthy data, verifiable AI systems, accountable human expertise, and consumer-centered institutions.

KISDI will continue to expand research and expert discussions on major AI policy issues and support the responsible use of AI technologies and the development of a digital innovation ecosystem through policy platforms that bring together government, industry, academia, and civil society.

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KISDI Hosts Special Seminar on AI and Legal Tech