Summary
Pro Bono raises some compelling questions about the law in Episodes 7 & 8, threading them through two distinct but interlocking cases.
One of the most interesting questions about the law in general is who it is supposed to serve. Is it a tool of equality, to be applied equally to all? Does it have a responsibility to protect the most downtrodden and easily exploitable? Should how rigorously it’s employed be flexible based on context? These are all valid questions, and Pro Bono is good at asking them, if not necessarily answering them. Episodes 7 & 8 do a good enough job, but it might be the case that there simply aren’t any good, and certainly no easy, answers to be found.
If nothing else, those who practice law have their own biases and their own ideas, and this unavoidably colours how they approach their responsibilities. In case it wasn’t obvious – though it very much was – Da-wit is being posited as a champion of the needy, someone who fights on behalf of those who can’t fight for themselves. It’s nothing new; basically every legal drama ever has had this kind of character at its centre. But it works all the same.
But Da-wit is staking the existence of the pro bono team, which Oh is adamant about disbanding, against him being able to steal the richest clients from a rival company. That’s putting profit over what’s right, but needs must. The deal is that if Da-wit pulls it off, the team remains. If he doesn’t, he’ll make himself scarce. It’s a noble gesture, one befitting of a guy falsely accused of bribery. Gi-Ppeum is determined to help him prove his innocence in that regard, but there are things to do in the meantime.
Episodes 7 & 8 of Pro Bono provide, fittingly, two cases. One is about an idol named Eliyah who has been caught on camera kicking off at school-age fans for essentially stalking her. After watching that Blackpink documentary, idol culture terrifies me; it’s like regular Western celebrity culture on steroids. The other case involves Ji-hye, a woman with learning disabilities whom Yeong-sil is representing. The side the audience is going to be on here pretty much speaks for itself.
An interesting thing being brought up in Eliyah’s case is the idea of new media – in this case, a YouTuber – essentially masquerading as the news. The argument in favour of the compromising footage is, when you boil it down, essentially one of the public’s right to know what’s going on. But “the public” in this case is a bit of an illusion. The comments are coming from fake accounts, that protected “interest” largely a ploy. There’s a cogent argument that people who make their living on “content” are intellectually biased as a starting point, and that the relative anonymity – or at least physical distance – that the internet allows compels them to behave in a way that they wouldn’t in person. This is proved rather adroitly when what’s easy to say online suddenly becomes much more challenging in person.
These two episodes also intriguingly dig into how people in positions of adoration can be manipulated by the people around them, even those who ostensibly love them. Eliyah’s mother has consistently chased all of her boyfriends away, and her brother has been embezzling money from her management company under her name. When Eliyah tries to sue the company, her mother, Jin-hui, takes the blame for the embezzlement, hiding behind a law that exempts crimes committed by direct family. To tie this in to Ji-hye’s plight, it’s the same legal loophole that allows her own uncle to abuse her. Eliyah wants to use her position to help Ji-hye, but it’s not in Da-wit’s best interests to take her on over the management company, thanks to the billing problem. You can see how these kinds of cases end up festering.
But Pro Bono is a K-Drama, which means, of course, that Da-wit decides to fight the good fight. And, equally predictably, he secures a win for Eliyah, who breaks free of her mother’s shackles and sets a positive example for all of her fans, including Ji-hye. But Da-wit’s short-term victory doesn’t make his long-term problems go away, and with Jae-beom gunning for him due to the belief that, when he was a judge, he manipulated the trial of his father, resulting in his death. It’s highly likely that didn’t happen, at least not in that way, but that isn’t to say it can’t cause major problems in the meantime.
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