Abstract
Writings on legal transplants often focus on the state-to-state spread of legal rules. Yet, other legal phenomena – such as legal ideas, methods, practices, structures, and personnel – can be observed moving across national boundaries and through non-state pathways. This article empirically examines several key processes of American influence on the South Korean legal profession, how they function, and how they affect the practice of law in the country. This article is based on data gathered from interviews with Korean lawyers, judges, and law professors and conceptualizes processes of legal influence using the social science of the diffusion of innovations, a body of knowledge concerned with the spread of objects and ideas. Diffusion theory has rarely been applied to the study of the transnational dissemination of legal phenomena, yet its insights can enhance our understanding of how such processes occur. Drawing on this theory, this study traces the diffusion into and within South Korea of the law firm model for the provision of legal services, American legal documentary styles, financial deal structures, personnel, and the practice of citing U.S. case law in court proceedings. The paper concludes by analyzing the key factors in legal diffusion processes involving the Korean legal profession.