Recent Developments

Lee & Ko has been selected as the winner of the Specialist award – Pro Bono at the 2024 IFLR Asia Pacific Awards. 

Lee & Ko won the lawsuit against the Incheon International Airport Immigration Bureau for cancellation of the determination not to refer to the refugee status screening on behalf of the refugees Mali and Angola. This case has become a landmark precedent for the South Korean government to conduct the refugee screening in accordance with due process. As a result of the collaboration and exercise of expertise by various attorneys in Lee & Ko, the firm was awarded the Specialist award – Pro bono in recognition of these activities. Lee & Ko plans to continue its vigorous efforts to provide legal support to the underprivileged. 

The IFLR (International Financial Law Review) is a global legal magazine specializing in finance. Annually at the IFLR Asia Pacific Awards, it selects and presents winners from various practice areas such as outstanding law firms, attorneys, deals, in-house counsels and specialist awards in Asia based on extensive research results, including submission by law firms and interviews with attorneys, in-house lawyers and corporate finance professionals.

Lee & Ko attorneys Tong Keun Seol and Jin Young Jung won the “ESG Lawyer of the Year” and “Transport Lawyer of the Year” respectively at the awards ceremony of The Asia Legal Awards 2024. 

As an expert in environment and labor issues, attorney Tong Keun Seol particularly focuses his practice on climate change matters and disputes arising from environmental pollution such as establishment of corporate compliance system, emissions trading and CBAM etc., and labor law such as occupational safety and serious accidents. Recently, Mr. Seol has engaged in various cases in ESG sector such as research on CBAM policies, advice on supply chain due diligence, representation of greenwashing case related to green labels, human rights impact assessment and consultation on response to the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. 

Attorney Jin Young Jung has been engaging in various tasks in the practices areas of maritime and insurance as an expert in maritime, aviation, insurance and international trade. Recently, he succeeded in winning the large-scale fleet by professionally drafting and reviewing the contract and bid documents for a consortium consisting of three Korean shipping companies and negotiating with the owner in a large-scale international bid conducted by Qatar Energy, a state-owned company in Qatar to select a shipping company using new LNG vessels. In addition, Mr. Jung won the monumental arbitral award and court judgment on the legal substance of the exclusive shipping contract for the transport of LNG and the application of short-term exclusion period to the exclusive shipping contract through the arbitration process with the largest gas wholesale company in Korea. 

The Asia Legal Awards is an annual awards ceremony hosted by The Asian Lawyer, a sister magazine of the renowned American legal media “The American Lawyer (ALM),” which recognizes the best Asian lawyers and law firms, deals and in-house counsel teams across the entire field of business.

9 Lee & Ko lawyers have been nominated as “Thomson Reuter Stand-out Lawyers 2024”, a global media providing legal database. 

Thomson Reuters nominates the Stand-out Lawyers by receiving recommendations through the global Sharplegal study, which is conducted every year to more than 2,000 senior in-house counsels around the world. 

The list of the nominated lawyers is as follows: 
Sanggon Kim
Kwang Bae Park
Byeong Jun Son
Tom Shin
Hyunjoo Oh
Yeonwoo Lee
Jun Taek Lee
Hyung Soo Lee
Jeong Yoon Choi

Lee & Ko was selected as the only “Law Firm of the Year” in Korea at the Korea Law Awards 2023 hosted by the Asia Business Law Journal (ABLJ). In addition, Lee & Ko was honored with the most awards among Korean law firms as the firm was selected as one of the “Best overall law firms”, an award awarded to law firms with excellent reviews in all categories out of a total of 34 categories evaluated by ABLJ, and was awarded in a total of 25 categories including practice areas such as Corporate & Commercial, M&A, Banking & Finance, Litigation, In/Outbound Investment, Patent, Taxation, TMT, Fintech etc. 

The Asia Business Law Journal selected Lee & Ko as the law firm of the year, highlighting its success in a USD 700 million ICC arbitration case and in critical cases involving KEPCO, KHNP and Westinghouse which established Lee & Ko’s renowned position as the leading arbitration firm in the nuclear sector. 

According to ABLJ, one of Lee & ko's clients also evaluated that “Lee & Ko adeptly identified the key issues in the case, elucidated the loopholes in the opposing party’s argument, and effectively persuaded the court through compelling written and verbal articulations”.

Asia Business Law Journal, a regional law journal in Asia, has been conducting surveys on lawyers from domestic and foreign law firms and companies, and has been evaluating domestic law firms since 2021 based on performance data by category submitted by domestic law firms.

Lee & Ko has been recognized once again for its exceptional capabilities in legal service in 2024 by Chambers Global. The firm was ranked as a top leading law firm (Band 1) in seven practice areas by the Chambers Global in its latest 2024 edition. As for the individual rankings, the firm’s 32 attorneys has been recognized as Ranked Lawyers for their remarkable performance in their respective practice areas.


Banking & Finance
Capital Markets
Corporate/M&A
Dispute Resolution: Litigation
Intellectual Property
International & cross Border Capabilities: South Korean Firms
North Korea: General Business Law


Banking & Finance: Yeo Kyoon Yoon, Woo Young Jung, Yong-Jae Chang, Myoung Chul Kwak
Capital Markets: Hyunjoo Oh, Seunga Hyun
Capital Markets: Securitisation: Jin Hong Kwon, Hyunjoo Oh
Corporate/M&A: Kyu Wha Lee, Sanggon Kim, Hyeong Gun Lee, Ho Joon Moon, Yong Joon Yoon
Dispute Resolution: Arbitration: Robert Wachter, Sean(Sungwoo) Lim, Saemee Kim, Sanghoon Han, Grace Yoon
Dispute Resolution: Litigation: Won Seok Ko, Pyoung Keun Song, Seong Won Chang
Intellectual Property: Jae Hoon Kim, Un Ho Kim, Choong Jin Oh, Keum Nang Park, Hyeon Gil Ryoo, Vera Eun Woo Lee
International Trade: Kichang Chung, Young Gee Park, Young Jae Cho, Hyunsoo Joo
North Korea: General Business Law (Foreign Expertise based abroad in South Korea): Hyung Sub Lim

Lee & Ko was selected as Tier 1 law firm in Korea across 15 fields according to ‘The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2024’. Furthermore, 52 Lee & Ko attorneys were selected as ‘Hall of Fame’, ‘Leading Individuals’, ‘Next Generation Partners’, and ‘Rising Stars’ in their respective fields.

[Firm Rankings]
 Antitrust and Competition
 Banking & Finance
 Capital Markets
 Corporate and M&A
 Dispute Resolution
 Fintech and financial services regulatory
 Insurance
 Intellectual Property
 International Arbitration
 Labour and Employment
 Projects and Energy
 Real Estate
 Regulatory: Compliance and Investigations
 Shipping
 Tax

[Ranked Lawyers]
 Antitrust and Competition: Hwan Jeong, Suruyn Kim, Jung Won Kwon
 Banking & Finance: Yeo Kyoon Yoon, Myoung Chul Kwak, Hyunsu Kim
 Capital Markets: Hyunjoo Oh, Dongyon Kim
 Corporate and M&A: Hyeong Gun Lee, Ho Joon Moon, Sang Gon Kim, Daehoon Koo, Kyungchun Kim, Sung Min Kim
 Dispute Resolution: Pyoung Keun Song, Seong Won Chang, Jae Heon Park, Yeon Woo Lee
 Fintech and financial services regulatory: Jongsoo (Jay) Yoon, Hyeong Min Yoo, Seong Hwan Ju
 Insurance: Jin Hong Kwon, Jin-Young Jung, Sae Um Kim
 Intellectual Property: Choong Jin Oh, Keum Nang Park, Un Ho Kim,
 Intellectual Property: PATMA: Kyungjin Kim, Soo Yeon Park
 International Arbitration: Robert Wachter, Sean (Sungwoo) Lim, Saemee Kim, Sunyoung Kim, Elizabeth Shin
 Labour and Employment: Chang-Soo Jin, Sang-Hoon Lee, Jae Hoon-Choi, William Kim, Shawn (Seong Ho) Han
 Projects and Energy: Hun Ko, Hyunsu Kim
 Real Estate: Jin Wook Yang, Jee In Kim
 Regulatory: Compliance and Investigations : Tae Yop Lee, Jae Woo Jung, Jung Han Nam
 Shipping: Jin-Young Jung, Yang Ho Yoon
 Tax: Byeong Jun Son, Sung Hyun Ryu
 TMT: Kwang Bae Park, Hyun Jun Kim, Il Shin Lee

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific is annually published by Legalease, a global agency that evaluates the capacity of law firms all over the world based on various standards through a comprehensive review of submitted documents by law firms, interviews with lawyers specialized in each field, and feedback from over 300,000 clients.