The Lawyer Act of Korea provides that the lawyers should keep the secrets which they got to know during their work. The Criminal Code of Korea also has similar provision. However, there has been rarely an occasion where the lawyer's duty to keep the confidentiality becomes an issue in Korea. As a result, there was no serious discussion over this issue.
Lawyers' duty to keep their clients' secrets has long history in the common law adversary system. It is natural that without protecting the secrets of the clients, their legal right to be properly represented will be hampered. It is now recognized as a one of the basic concepts of the lawyer's ethic rules.
Probably the two most famous U.S. cases concerning the lawyers' duty to keep the confidentiality are the attorneys Belge and Arami case arising from the multiple murder, and Spaulding v. Zimmerman decision where the lawyer's silence could have killed the client's opponent plaintiff. Those two cases are not the cases which can happen usually. However, the cases obviously raised dilemma which any lawyer could face at any time.