1. The Client's Crisis

The client had been living with a spouse and children after marriage. During the marriage, when the spouse learned that the client had met with an acquaintance, marital conflict began, and the spouse consistently acted violently, throwing objects at the client and threatening with a knife. After starting a separation, the client filed for divorce.

However, the trial court found that the client's meeting with the acquaintance constituted "wrongful conduct" and therefore held the client to be the party at fault. The client's divorce claim was dismissed, the spouse's counterclaim for divorce was granted, and the court even ordered the client to pay alimony to the spouse. The property division settlement amount also fell far short of expectations. In addition, during the appeal, the client was diagnosed with a serious illness and had to undergo treatment while continuing the litigation.

2. Key Issues

There were four major complex issues to be argued in this case. First, whether the client's meeting with the acquaintance and physical contact constituted "wrongful conduct" under the Civil Act. Because the trial court had recognized this as wrongful conduct, overturning that finding on appeal was the top priority. Second, it was necessary to uncover the spouse's large-scale concealment of assets, including intentionally omitting deposits worth hundreds of millions of won during the trial, creating sham debts using acquaintances, and hiding high-value tangible assets. Third, it had to be proven that the spouse's long-term concealment of the client's suspected serious illness and the spouse's wrongful conduct with multiple women were the real causes of the breakdown of the marriage. Fourth, based on allegations of abuse of the children by the spouse, it was necessary to argue that the spouse was unfit as a custodial parent and secure custody in a stable manner.

3. The Strategy

Attorney Yoon Ji-sang, the firm's managing partner, and Attorney Noh Jong-eon, the firm's managing partner, developed a strategy to overturn the trial court's factual findings head-on by linking the judgments, transcripts, and civil and family-law materials obtained in the criminal proceedings into a single evidentiary framework, and persuading the court through the overall context rather than isolated pieces of evidence.

First, they proved that the client's conduct did not rise to "wrongful conduct" under the Civil Act. They objectively organized the fact that the time spent at the acquaintance's home was extremely brief, and revealed that the written pledge and apology messages used as evidence of wrongful conduct in the trial court were prepared under the spouse's severe threats and coercion. They undermined the voluntariness of the written pledge by linking it to the fact that the spouse had assaulted the client and threatened the client with a weapon, for which the spouse was criminally punished.

Second, they meticulously traced and proved the spouse's large-scale concealment of assets. Drawing on Attorney Noh Jong-eon's ability to read financial structures from his experience as head of the legal team at a major financial conglomerate, they systematically uncovered the omission of savings-bank deposits, the movement of funds through acquaintances and false confirmations, and the possession of high-value tangible assets. They also exposed that the debt-related fact statements submitted by the spouse were false and, in fact, that the spouse held a receivable against the acquaintance in question, thereby neutralizing the claim of sham debt.

Third, they highlighted that the spouse's violence, concealment of illness, and wrongful conduct were the main causes of the breakdown of the marriage. They submitted evidence showing that the spouse repeatedly forced the client and the acquaintance to apologize while using abusive language and threats, that the spouse received a final criminal conviction for instigating defamation against the acquaintance, that the spouse intentionally concealed for a long period the client's suspected serious illness, and that the spouse himself maintained wrongful relationships with multiple women during the marriage and continued the affair even during the litigation.

Fourth, from the pre-trial preparation stage onward, they selected the key issues and reorganized the case into a structure that made it easier for the court to decide. By connecting messages, SNS posts, call recordings, written statements, criminal judgments, and transcripts of witness examinations, they exposed the contradictions inherent in the other side's arguments and undermined the credibility of the entire claim.

4. Outcome and Recovery

The appellate court reached a conclusion entirely different from that of the trial court. It found that the client's meeting with the acquaintance could not be regarded as improper conduct rising to "wrongful conduct" under the Civil Act. Rather, it held that the spouse's consistent use of verbal abuse, coercion, and violent behavior while trying to resolve the conflict had made the marriage irretrievably broken. It ruled that both spouses were equally responsible for the breakdown of the marriage, dismissed both parties' claims for alimony, and completely relieved the client from the obligation to pay alimony imposed in the first trial.

The property division settlement was finalized at KRW 700 million, taking into account concealed assets and changes in real estate value. The client's parental authority and custody of the children were maintained, and past child support and future child support payments were also finalized.

The spouse appealed the appellate decision to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, making the appellate judgment final.

Meanwhile, in a separate damages lawsuit the spouse filed against the client's acquaintance, the court also dismissed all of the spouse's claims. The reason was that, once the appellate divorce court had found the fault of both sides to be equal, joint tort liability toward a third party could not be recognized.

Responsible attorneys: Managing Partner Attorney Yoon Ji-sang · Managing Partner Attorney Noh Jong-eon

To protect confidentiality, this case has been partially de-identified to the extent that it does not undermine the substance of the case.