Here’s a collection of quotes from the Korean drama, Beyond The Bar (2025):
Episode 1
“Attorneys bill their time for the work they do in five-minute increments. Time management skills are essential in such a line of work.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“We should engage in fair competition. We should do so to ensure a sweet reward for those who sheds blood, sweat, and tears, and disappointment and regret for those who do not. Only then can our society see progress without regression.” – Kang Hyo Min
“The law is not perfect. Moral standards and legal standards do not always align. That is the constant struggle for legal practitioners.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Love comes in many different shades. Heterosexual, homosexuality, maternal, paternal, reverential, brotherhood friendship, camaraderie, love for humanity, and self-love. And that love hurts people. Once that wound festers, they consider legal action. At that breaking point, they believe their last resort, the lawsuit, will protect their happiness and their right to it. I want to represent people like that.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Does a small claim mean the case carries less weight?” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“If you lack the necessary smarts, you should at least park yourself at a desk to review it incessantly and brainstorm persistently before putting anything out.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Does passing the bar exam make you an attorney?” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“No company hires consulting attorneys to have them space out at the meeting.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Someone’s gain always comes at someone else’s expense.” – Kang Hyo Min
Episode 2
“Studying law causes an earthquake in your mind. It shifts your mindset. After that, we see everything from a legal perspective. The more you understand the law, the more confined your thinking becomes, like a small mind trapped by dogma.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“A complaint without a solution is just a pile of useless words. This is a battle of facts.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“The same goes for love. You won’t know how strong it is until it’s tested in boiling water.” – Kang Hyo Min
“In a lawsuit, it’s not about who wins. It’s about who gets hurt less.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Would you turn away from her? When the looks or circumstances of your loved one change, your love changes as well.” – Kang Hyo Min
“But you see, when the person you love is in crisis and you walk away, it’s not about love anymore. It just makes you a disloyal bastard.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
Episode 3
“I have no desire to become the captain of a sinking ship.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Do only perfect things deserve to exist?” – Kang Hyo Min
“Don’t be so sure that all mothers are devoted to their kids and selflessly love their kids more than themselves. Mothers are just people. And people are selfish to the point of cruelty.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“In this world, there are people who don’t want to become mothers and those who should never be mothers.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“My genius was a product of nurture rather than nature. The result of my mom’s efforts.” – Kang Hyo Min
“A mother is still a woman and a person. That’s why they’re capable of making selfish choices. Will accepting that help understand and resolve any resentment? In my head I understand but my heart still hasn’t.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
Episodes 4-5
“Someone who seems bad can still act out of goodwill, while someone who seems good may still do harm.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Sometimes, the love of a stranger can be deeper and stronger than that of family.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Let go of your biases and look at the essence.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“The law exists to take care of people like you.” – Kang Hyo Min
Episode 6
“A law firm isn’t like a corporation. You can’t just transfer management rights like that. A law firm is a partnership.” – Ko Seung Cheol
“A partner who hasn’t earned the respect of the partners can never truly lead.” – Ko Seung Cheol
“Can’t we say love is a form of diminished capacity, too?” – Kang Hyo Min
“When we fall in love, we all lose a bit of judgment and become irrational.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Love can impair your mind and body to the point where rational judgment becomes impossible.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Don’t go dragging through the mud when they’ve wiped their past clean.” – Heo Min Jeong
“The more I love, the more vulnerable I become.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“In the face of love, everyone becomes irrational and weak. So love and vulnerability always go hand in hand.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“When you meet a client wanting to heal their scars through a lawsuit, you need to look beneath the scars. Winning the case or receiving compensation isn’t always the only form of comfort.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“I hope your heart doesn’t scar like a keloid. The end of love always leaves a scar, but I hope it doesn’t linger as pain.” – Kang Hyo Min
“End it with dignity. Let that final moment be the one that stays with you.” – Kang Hyo Min
Episode 7
“He reads the room before even walking in, so let’s get it done before he even sees the room.” – Ko Tae Sop
“Love is a rainbow. Love shines through a colorful spectrum of emotions. Red is passion. Orange is warmth. Yellow is happiness. Green is peace. Blue is trust. Indigo is depth. Violet is mystique.” – Mr. Hwang
“Love isn’t just about passion. This level of content we’ve reached after all our struggles is also love.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Seeing someone as your family, your person, and someone you want to lean on and rely on is also love.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Love isn’t just red. The love we once shared just changed into different colors as time passed. But it didn’t stop being love just because it was a different color.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“The greatest revenge you can take on people living in the gutter is just leaving them behind.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“The only thing that can’t be replaced in this world is yourself. Even that person from your past can eventually be replaced.” – Kang Hyo Min
“They say emotions can’t withstand the weathering of time and that time erases even its own traces.” – Kang Hyo Min
Episode 8
“In this world, there are women who make the impossible possible just like Wonder Woman. Some of these women excel in their careers and maintain a happy family at the same time by being loving wives and supportive mothers. Others rise above every hardship they face in their own ways. And others stand tall in a league of their own, recognized by all.” – Kang Hyo Min
“To me, justice means protecting the people I have to protect. And for that, I’d do anything.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Don’t think like a small mind trapped in dogma. Try to see the bigger picture.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“The sharpness of words isn’t the problem. What matters is where you use them and who you use them for.” – Kang Hyo Min
“I realized that using words to protect those I have to protect could be a fun profession.” – Kang Hyo Min
“I felt like I was walking through a dark tunnel alone, but you lent me a flashlight.” – Kang Hyo Min
Episode 9
“A doctor’s job is to save people. You don’t get to decide who deserves to live.” – Physician
“There is no greater offense than incompetence.” – Ko Seung Cheol
“Attorneys do not distort the truth. We help ensure it doesn’t get skewed in the wrong light due to a client’s legal inexperience or the inflexibility of the law.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“No family is without its struggles.” – Kang Hyo Min
“They say life looks like a tragedy up close and like a comedy from afar.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Do you think humans have a right to life?” – Kang Hyo Min
“I believe that right is determined by the marks we make on the lives of others. If that mark only contains suffering and despair, I think you lose the right to life. And if someone who lost that right dies, their death is no longer a tragedy. It just becomes another piece that keeps the world in balance.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
Episode 10
“If a parent jumps into a fire, does being a good child mean jumping in after them?” – Kang Hyo Min
“You wrote laws for people with disabilities and did volunteer work, and yet you abandoned your own disabled daughter. You pushed for legislation to protect victims of school violence, but you turned your back on Kim So-yun. At least try to feel some regret so I can try to understand you.” – Kang Hyo Min
“The silence of a bystander can be just as cruel as the violence of the perpetrator. In the end, it’s no different from taking the perpetrator’s side.” – Kim Yeong Mi
“They say we’re not only responsible for our actions but also for our inaction.” – Kim Yeong Mi
“The law must serve not only to punish but also to offer new opportunities through rehabilitation and reintegration into society.” – Kang Hyo Min
“The crime committed by Kim Yeong-mi is not merely a personal tragedy but the result of a societal failure we chose to ignore. Supporting her rehabilitation is more than an act of personal redemption. It’s a way for us to restore the compassion and responsibility we neglected and a path toward a more just and humane society.” – Kang Hyo Min
“They say people make intuitive judgments first and then come up with logical reasons afterward. That’s why they say intuition is a gift from God and reason is its faithful servant. Your argument was both intuitive and technically well-supportive, presenting clear logical reasoning to the judge. It also maintained a good balance between emotion and reason. You did well.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“You’re an awesome sculptor. You patiently chip away at the rough edges and shortcomings of the associates and bring out the potential they didn’t even know they had.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Of all your sculptures, who is your greatest masterpiece?” – Kang Hyo Min
Episodes 11-12
“But a mother-daughter relationship is rather complicated. There’s hate and love at the same time. You can’t stand each other, yet you miss each other.” – Heo Min Jeong
“All love is amazing and noble, but there’s something a little more special about a mom’s love. You can’t fully understand it just from secondhand experience.” – Heo Min Jeong
“Love is a feeling and feeling can change at any time. On the other hand, marriage is essentially a fixed lifelong contract, so the two won’t always coincide.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Marriage is something you do when you’re crazy in love. What determines a good match or a bad one? Isn’t love what really matters in marriage?” – Jin Woo
“I’ll never let you feel less than you are.” – Jin Woo
“I think marriage is built on love. Over time, that love just changes shape.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Love with a couple starts with passion, goes through reality, and ends in solidarity. Losing passion doesn’t mean losing love. Solidarity, loyalty, belonging. They’re all just different forms of love.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Loving someone isn’t reason enough to get married, and getting married doesn’t guarantee that love will last.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“If love is about looking at each other, marriage is about looking in the same direction.” – Yoon Seok Hoon
“Some loves are epic tales, and some are short stories. Just because you wrote a short story doesn’t mean it’s a failure.” – Kang Hyo Min
“It’s not a failure. It just means one book has ended. You need to write another one. One with passionate romance.” – Kang Hyo Min
“Some use the law as a weapon and others use it as a tool. What is the difference between the two? The former tries to uphold the law, while the latter tries to rule over it. I am the latter and you are the former.” – Ko Seung Cheol
“I will use the law as a weapon to build a fair system.” – Kwon Na Yeon
“True strength lies in the flexibility to bend at times rather than snap.” – Ko Seung Cheol
“Love is not perfect and marriage is the process of enduring that imperfect love together. That process can be difficult and can fail. And sometimes divorce is chosen as a result. However, if we exclude love from the very beginning just because it is difficult, we lose the most essential value in the journey of marriage.” – Judge
“We only learn love after being hurt, and we realize its value only after losing it. That’s how, step by step, we’ve come to understand love. So to me, love feels like a journey of constant questioning, reflection, and experiences as I search for my own answer. And I want to make that journey with you.” – Jin Woo
“To me, love is…” – Yoon Seok Hoon
Genre: Office, Legal
Also known as: Esquire
Synopsis: A story about lawyers based on real-life legal cases.
No of episodes: 12
Cast: Lee Jin-wook, Jung Chae-yeon, Lee Hak-joo, Jeon Hye-bin
Screenwriter: Park Mi-hyun
Director: Kim Jae-hong
Network: JTBC
Streaming platform: Netflix
Date: August 2, 2025
Netflix English subtitle translation:
Justin S. Kim, Yuri Kang
Images: JTBC
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