Take My Lawyer, Please!

[homesweethome]

Japan: Lawyers Wanted. Really
Once litigation-averse, the country is rushing to fill a shortage of attorneys

What will Japan do with all its new lawyers? Given that the economy is growing at its fastest clip in years, demand for savvy merger attorneys is surging.

With so many new schools starting all at once, growing pains are inevitable.

Despite the changes, it's unlikely Japan will ever fully embrace the kind of legal conflict common in the U.S. Litigation is messy and flies in the face of Japan's cultural preference for harmony. But a more sophisticated, and contentious, legal system may be just what the country needs in order to keep its economic overhaul on track. And that means tolerating unseemly courtroom brawls that once might have shocked...

I wonder about this 'cultural preference for harmony' if it ever existed, a few hours in a court room will quickly dispell this myth. Sounds like it was written by some FG's that haven't been out of the office for a while. Educators saw this coming for several years and the smart ones have capitalized on it. Law School grads, have jobs gallore just sucking them up.

[kamome]

This is old news. The plan to convert to US-style law schools, as well as other legal reforms, has been in effect since 2001.
Recommendations of the Justice System Reform Council (2001)

Check out the Homepage for Waseda Law School.

Land of the Rising Lawyer (2005 article in Legal Affairs)

[American Oyaji]

In my monster.com job report today, all the Japanese jobs were lawyer jobs.

It looks like the recruiting firms are trying to lock the market on laywers wanting to work in Japan.

[kamome]

In my monster.com job report today, all the Japanese jobs were lawyer jobs.

It looks like the recruiting firms are trying to lock the market on laywers wanting to work in Japan.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, I did a random search for Japanese jobs at Monster.com and saw nothing law related. Only sales, marketing, English-teaching and engineering.

In any case, the market for bengoshi (native Japanese lawyers who are licensed to practice law in Japan) is always hot. There aren't enough of them and everyone needs their advice in order to accomplish transactions. If they speak English, their market value is sky high.

Generally speaking, the market for foreign lawyers who speak Japanese is also good, but not quite as good as it is for bengoshi.

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: In sweeping legal reform, increasingly litigious Japan expecting flood of new lawyers

In past years, 25-year-old law school graduate Hiroyuki Ichikawa would have been facing an almost impossible task -- a bar exam with a 97 percent failure rate. Now, his chances are closer to 50-50. In the most sweeping reform of Japan's legal system since World War II, the doors are opening wide for a flood of new lawyers, prosecutors and judges to handle criminal and civil cases in an increasingly litigious society. Experts say the reforms are long overdue and underscore a big shift in social attitudes that is forcing Japan to change its longstanding policy of keeping the number of lawyers low and the public out of the courts. "People are beginning to take more and more of their troubles to court," said Hideaki Kubori, a corporate lawyer and a professor at Omiya Law School outside Tokyo. "There are just not enough lawyers"...more...

This article, like many before it, talks of Japan becoming more litigious. That seems highly probable and yet it offers little hard evidence. More bankruptcy filings doesn't mean more court litigation and there are no numbers behind the other claim that inheritance tax and divorce disputes are increasingly heading towards the courts. It could be that the percentage of such disputes being taken to court is stable but the total number of cases is rising.

Shareholders appear more willing to sue company mangements these days although they have yet to win any significant victory. There are more stories of labour disputes, particularly relating to the status of part-time employees, but a number are being settled in arbitration rather than in court. That may sound like a hair-splitting distinction but I think any discussion of Japan becoming more litigious has an underlying assumption that no lawyers has been an indication of higher social harmony. And yet Japanese do come into conflict but tend to resort to non-court means of resolution which don't get so much attention, especially overseas. I'd be interested to know whether "more litigious" means that there are more conflicts in society today or whether it means that instances of conflict are much the same as before but more are being taken to court instead of being resolved through a residents' panel or labour board.

[Mulboyne]

Japan Times: Courts refuse to hire lawyers on nationality

Three courts have refused to allow three Korean residents working as lawyers to assume commissioned jobs despite being nominated by their bar associations, because they are not Japanese, attorneys said Thursday...The Supreme Court said the status of the jobs is similar to that of civil servants in positions of authority and therefore require Japanese nationality, but their fellow lawyers are voicing objections to the court measures, they said. Each bar association plans to file a petition with local courts demanding that they hire lawyers under Japan's judicial system regardless of nationality, claiming the courts' refusal is not based on any provisions. The rules on family court arbitrators, for example, require only that they qualify as lawyers and have the technical knowledge helpful to resolve civil and family disputes, but not that they have Japanese nationality.

Many lawyers raised questions about the measures in a recent study meeting of the Tokyo Bar Association, saying the courts' attitude has no legal grounds and is out of touch with the times and current efforts to eradicate discrimination. One of the lawyers, Choi, said he considers the court's measure a form of discrimination if it is based solely on nationality. "As a member of the city government's advisory council, I have been engaged in some sense in public decision-making," he said. "Since arbitrators make judgments based on the law and their conscience, the qualifying based only on the status of nationality is discrimination"...more...