On July 16th, viewers expressed their curiosity about Woo Young-woo’s expected salary on an online community. If you apply various settings in the drama that have already been revealed to the profession in reality, you can expect Woo Young-woo’s income estimate.
Woo Young-woo is a new lawyer who graduated as a valedictorian from Seoul National University Law School and just joined Hanbada, the second-largest law firm in the country. In the drama, the No. 1 law firm in the industry is Taesan, and Hanbada is portrayed as a law firm seeking to become No. 1 in the drama.
The No. 1 law firm in Korea is Kim & Chang, which has maintained its unrivaled No. 1 position in the domestic law firm market, and BKL are competing for the No. 2 position. Kim & Chang’s total sales last year are estimated to be about three times higher than the 385.7 billion won of BKL, the second-largest in the industry.
From the setting that Woo Young-woo is a new lawyer for Hanbada, the second-largest in the industry, we can estimate her annual salary by comparing it to that of BKL employees.
Woo Young-woo’s salary is at least 12 million won. Accordingly, as of last year, the monthly salary of a first-year lawyer at BKL was 11.3 million won before tax. In March of this year, the monthly salary was reportedly raised to 13 million won, which is applied in Kim & Chang – the No.1 law firm in Korea. The annual salary of a first-year lawyer at BKL is around 150 million won.
In the case of Lee & Ko and Shin & Kim, which are competing for the 3rd and 4th places in the industry, the salary of a first-year lawyer is reported to be around 12 million won. If Woo Young-woo is a new lawyer at the 2nd largest law firm, she is also expected to receive a similar amount of monthly income of 12 million won minimum and 13 million won maximum.
Many viewers were surprised to see Woo Young-woo’s expected income. It is said that Woo Young-woo, who was born in 1996 and is 26 years old, is receiving a high salary for a beginner in society. However, in the case of new lawyers at large law firms, it is common for them to suffer from heavy work such as frequent overtime and weekend work. If the annual salary of 100 million won is also converted into working hours, the complaint that their income is “lower than that of ordinary office workers” is not useless at all.
Apart from Woo Young-woo’s expected income, her extraordinary ability to make people sympathize with her is moving the hearts of all viewers. According to the OTT ranking site FlixPatrol on July 16th, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” continued to rise in popularity by ranking 5th place in the worldwide TOP 10 chart.
Source: Nate