Empirical Support for Redefining theLegal Profession and New Roles for
Lawyers in Japanese Corporations
Kota Fukui*
Yusuke Fukui**
Edited by Stacey L Steele†

This article introduces the current legal needs, role and image of lawyers in Japanese corporate society, based on three questionnaire surveys conducted by a research group at Osaka
University. It provides empirical evidence to help clarify some of the reasons why Japanese
corporations do not utilise lawyers for daily business activities. It also considers the future oflawyers in Japan. It argues that the increased number of corporate in-house lawyers will drivechange in corporate legal culture in Japan and suggests factors that may accelerate thesechanges.

Criticism of the Japanese legal system and a desire for structural reformbrought about by Japan’s economic malaise culminated in the establishment of the Justice System Reform Council (JSRC) by the Cabinet ofJapan on 27 July 1999.1 One of the key issues the JSRC was asked toconsider was the ‘redefinition of the legal profession and reinforcement of
its function’ (Ronten Seiri, 1999). In June 2001, JSRC released its recommendations (Ikensho, 2001). JSRC’s fundamental findings for the creationof the ideal legal profession to ‘support Japan in the 21st Century’ included
that the ‘legal population’ be ‘substantially increased’; training forpotential lawyers2 should be comprehensively reformed; lawyers should be
encouraged to focus on social responsibilities (‘public interest’ lawyering),
business law and international transactions; and the status of people
engaged in corporate legal affairs who have not been admitted to practice
should be reviewed (Ikensho, 2001: Chapter III).
A decade after the JSRC’s final report, this article argues that theroles and perceptions of lawyers in Japanese corporations are changing asa result of the JSRC’s watershed final report.3 We also argue, however,that other reforms and developments in Japan’s society and economy may
bring about further and more fundamental change for lawyers working in
corporate legal affairs departments. Our findings are based on empiricalevidence collected by way of three questionnaire surveys conducted overthe course of 2007-08. Our research was made possible by a grant fromthe Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.4 We were particularly

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interested in the roles given to lawyers in Japanese corporations and theperceptions of the need for lawyers held by corporate managers andlawyers themselves, given the complicated and controversial debates
about the population of lawyers in Japan.5
Our main hypothesis is that the image of lawyers’ roles is changing
dramatically, influenced by increasing new legal needs of corporations.
Accordingly, we conducted a questionnaire survey on corporations’ legal
needs, as well as questionnaires on the type of legal work currently performed by private practice lawyers and corporate in-house lawyers, which
provided us with data to conduct a comparative analysis. We focused on
the corporate legal needs fulfilled by lawyers because Japanese corporations are generating new needs for lawyers in response to global businesscompetition.6 The fields of legal work being performed for corporations are
expanding due to internal and external pressure from ‘corporate compliance’ demands and ‘corporate social responsibility (CSR)’ requests, now
common in the Japanese business world. Figure 0-1, the ‘Mapping of theformation of legal works’, maps many typical fields of legal work.
Figure 0-1: Mapping of the formation of legal works

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The horizontal axis relates to the temporal stages of legal work (Anticipatory and Regulatory/ Arising from an Event), and the vertical axis
relates to the orientation of the legal work (Social Justice Orientation/
Business Orientation). The map helps plot the situation of legal work as oftoday and for the future.
Before conducting the questionnaire surveys, we assumed that themain fields for legal practice are shifting into both the upper left andupper right quadrants (more specifically, the upper left), which reflected abusiness-oriented shift from the lower right, which is the traditional
jurisprudence zone.7 The lower right quadrant is still very important, but
it is essential to analyse the movement toward the upper quadrant
carefully, in light of our hypothesis that the increasing legal needs ofcorporations and the lure of lucrative work will see more lawyers engaged
in that type of legal work.
The survey results, however, led us to slightly different conclusions.
According to the data, Japanese corporations were still largely expecting
lawyers to play traditional roles related to litigation or dispute settlement.8 Further, few think that they even need to employ in-house lawyers.
The data suggested that the need for lawyers in Japanese corporations isstill located in the lower right quadrant in Figure 0-1. Our data also
showed that roles mainly connected to corporate compliance matters (newto many Japanese corporations) were under consideration by Japanese
corporations. We believe that the role-images of lawyers in Japan are in atransitional phase, in which new fields of legal work, including compliance, may lead to an increase in in-house lawyers.

Number of Lawyers in Japan and the Ideal of the ‘Bengoshi’
LawyerRecent Reforms to the Number of Lawyers who Qualify Each YearThe results of the questionnaire surveys help to frame debate for futurereforms and developments in light of the increase in lawyers precipitatedby the JSRC, which has often been at the heart of public interest, media
reports and academic commentary relating to the JSRC’s reforms. To
date, debates about Japan’s need for more lawyers have generally not
been informed by specific empirical evidence.9
Although there have been many iterations of the ‘legal profession
population’ debate in relation to Japan, protagonists may be divided into
two major camps: those who oppose any increase in the number oflawyers, for example, traditionally, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA); and those who argue for an increase in the number oflawyers, for example Setsuo Miyazawa (Miyazawa, 2007a).

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[Vol 12When JSRC was established in 1999, the total number of Japaneselawyers was about 16,500;10 approximately one lawyer for every 6000
people in Japan. This was perceived to be very low by comparison withother developed countries.11 The population of Japanese lawyers was also
kept low because the Ministry of Justice set a small quota for successful
candidates passing the compulsory bar examination for admission topractice, but no restrictions were placed on the number of potential
candidates. Further, various vested interests, including lawyers, lobbied
the Japanese government to keep the number of qualified lawyers to aminimum.12 The JSRC recommended the introduction of graduate law
schools, which would limit the number of candidates sitting the bar examination by requiring them to have obtained a juris doctor (JD) degree
before sitting the examination. It also recommended, however, that thepass rate of the bar examination be increased, thereby increasing the
population of lawyers. JSRC wanted to increase the number of successful
candidates to 3000 per year by 2010, thus initially anticipating a pass-rate
of approximately 70%. The difficulties and successes of the new system
introduced in response to JSRC’s recommendations in April 2004 havebeen well documented.13 Despite only achieving a pass-rate of no morethan 30%, the ultimate goal of the reforms, to produce more qualified
lawyers, is being achieved.
Definition of a ‘Lawyer’ in Japan
According to the law governing the legal profession in Japan, a person
who has qualified as a lawyer is authorised to deal with a wide range oflegal matters.14 Traditionally, however, the role of lawyers has been
regarded as a barrister-like, specialised function, where lawyers exclusively deal with court-related matters.15 Lawyers have also been regarded
as highly independent professionals who do not work under the supervision of non-lawyers. Further, functions that would generally be performed by lawyers in other developed countries are traditionally ascribedto other qualified professionals in Japan. The population of Japan’s socalled ‘legal profession’ would swell if it were to include professionals suchas judicial scriveners (shihō shoshi),16 administrative scriveners (gyōsei
shoshi),17 tax accountants (zeirishi),18 public consultants on social andlabour insurance (shakai hoken rōmushi),19 and patent attorneys(benrishi).20 In the absence of a large number of qualified lawyers, these
professionals fulfil important legal needs, including conveyancing work,
property registration, preparation of legal or administrative documents,
income tax returns, social and labour insurance submissions, and patentfilings. If the number of these specialist professionals were added tothe population of lawyers in Japan, the so-called ‘legal professional’

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population would be approximately 200,000, which would bring Japan
into line with other developed countries.21
There is also a general acceptance in Japan that employees incorporate legal departments may conduct legal matters concerning theiremployers’ business in the course of their employment. Article 72 of the
Attorney Act (bengoshi hō) prohibits the provision of legal services by nonqualified lawyers for the purpose of obtaining compensation, except wherepermitted by the Attorney Act itself or other laws.22 Based on theprevailing understanding of art 72, however, legal work conducted by such
employees does not contravene the Act, because they do not receive
compensation for their legal work from an external source. Their legal
work does not generate any independent profit as it would if they were toestablish their own firm. The quality of work produced by these employees
is high. They are often tertiary-trained law graduates and have passed
one of the examinations relating to the professions mentioned above, suchas the patent attorneys (benrishi) examination, or have a businessqualification(s), such as in financial planning (fainansharu purannā), or
small and medium enterprise (SME) management consulting (chūsho
kigyō shindanshi).23 In some cases, they are certified public accountants(kōnin kaikeishi).24 Therefore, traditionally, Japanese corporations havemanaged their own legal matters, without the need to hire external or inhouse lawyers. In the 1990s, however, the Japan Federation of Economic
Organizations (keidanren) changed its attitude, and came to support therecommendations of JSRC. It perceived a need for more lawyers to enable
Japan to compete globally. Our survey results suggest, however, that thetendency to manage their own legal affairs remains intact in mostJapanese corporations.

Empirical Research into Japanese Corporations’
Legal Requirements
To discuss whether the population of lawyers in Japan is sufficient tomeet corporations’ legal requirements, empirical research is required tounderstand those requirements. In addition to asking users and potential
users about their need for lawyers, we also asked them about the expectedrole of lawyers. This is what we call ‘role-image’. A corporation’s need forlawyers is intrinsically related to their expected role. To further clarify theneed for lawyers, we also asked corporations about their need for otherlaw-related professionals. The need for lawyers will be affected by theirrelationship with other law-related professionals, as some lawyers’ roles
are performed by other law-related professionals in Japan. Our user-side
empirical research is supported by recent empirical research from the
supplier side, for example, research by lawyers themselves.25

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Questionnaire Survey on the Need for Lawyers in JapaneseCorporations, ‘Survey A’This questionnaire survey was conducted in February 2007. We distributed 2000 questionnaires to corporations from all over Japan selected
randomly using Teikoku Data Bank, the biggest corporate data bank inJapan. We selected 1000 corporations which had over 100 employees and1000 corporations which had less than 100 employees. The standard of
100 employees is a simple standard to classify relatively large companies
and SMEs in Japan.26 The questionnaires were delivered by post. We
received 320 responses; a response rate of 16%.
Questionnaire Survey on the Legal Work of Private Practice Lawyers
Belonging to the Osaka Bar Association, ‘Survey B’This questionnaire survey was distributed in August 2008 to 1500 members of the Osaka Bar Association (OBA); almost half of the private
practice lawyers registered with the OBA. We selected private practicelawyers randomly by using the lawyers search engine on the website of
the OBA. The questionnaires were delivered by post. We received 194
responses, a response rate of 12.9%.
We conducted the questionnaire survey of private practice lawyers
based on the OBA27 membership because we assume that lawyers in
Osaka are broadly representative of Japanese lawyers. Osaka also has
characteristics associated with a global metropolis, but retains aspects of a
local city culture.28 Our results from this questionnaire survey also provide a contrast to Tokyo-centric research, which would be more likely tofocus on Tokyo’s special needs as a major global metropolis.29
Questionnaire Survey on the Legal Work of Corporate In-house Lawyers
in Japan, ‘Survey C’This questionnaire survey was delivered in August 2008 to 259 corporate
in-house lawyers in Japan,30 which we believe to be the entire populationof corporate in-house lawyers at that time.31 We identified corporate inhouse lawyers by using the lawyer search engine on the website of the
JFBA,32 inserting keywords such as ‘Corporation (kaisha)’, ‘Inc (inku)’,‘LLC (eruerushī)’, ‘Ltd (kabu)’ and so on. We received 68 responses, a
response rate of 26.3%. The number of corporate in-house lawyers has
risen to about 410 in 2010. This is a large increase from 2008, but still a
relatively small number.
The response rate of these three questionnaire surveys is arguably
quite low and, therefore, we also use some assumptions when analysing
the data. Despite the low response rates, given that this is one of the first2010]

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empirical studies of its type, we believe that it is still useful to examineand present the results.

Use of Lawyers in Japanese Corporations: Findings fromthe Questionnaire Survey on the Need for Lawyers inJapanese Corporations, ‘Survey A’
Use of Lawyers in Japanese CorporationsFirst, we asked respondents whether they retain their own external
consultant lawyer by way of a retainer fee (komon bengoshi).33 According
to the result, half of the respondents (50.5%) answered this question
positively. However, there were few corporations with staff of less than 10
employees that retain their own external consultant lawyer by way of aretainer fee (17.1%).34 As the number of employees per corporation
increased, more respondents answered that they did so. Most of thecorporations with more than 300 employees (83.3%) retain their own
external consultant lawyer by way of a retainer fee. Accordingly, the sizeof the corporation is one of the drivers behind engaging lawyers on aretainer basis (Kitagawa and Nottage, 2007: 211–12).
Although corporations are retaining their own external consultant
lawyer by way of a retainer fee, there are very few respondents who
employ in-house lawyers – just 2.2%. This rate is the same for both large
corporations and SMEs.35 Although seemingly low, 2.2% is actually a highrate considering that the total number of in-house lawyers in Japan wasless than 200 as of February 2007 (see also JILA Statistics, 2009b). One
possible reason for the high percentage is the effect of sampling. We
distributed the questionnaire survey to 1000 large and 1000 small
corporations as discussed above. There are many more small corporationsin Japan than large corporations, so the proportion of the larger corporations in our survey is considerably higher than the proportion of larger
corporations in Japanese business life generally. This may be one reason
for the high rate of respondents indicating that they employ in-houselawyers. Another reason may be that respondents hire outside lawyers as
temporary staff on a project basis. When we conducted this questionnaire
survey, there was a lot of new legislation, including the new codification of
the Companies Act (kaisha hō) and the Financial Products Transaction
Act (kinyū shōhin torihiki hō);36 accordingly, legal specialists would havebeen in high demand. Further, it may be that corporations with in-houselawyers were more likely to respond to a survey about in-house lawyers
and legal needs, as they are generally more aware of the issues surrounding the emerging in-house market in Japan. We also contend that

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2.2% is indicative of a change in Japanese corporate legal culture towards
hiring more in-house lawyers.37
Reasons for not Utilising Lawyers
As discussed, many Japanese corporations do not use lawyers in their
daily business activities, because non-lawyer personnel are permitted todeal with legal matters relating to the corporation. We hypothesised,however, that this was not the only reason. We asked the corporations
that answered that they do not need to use lawyers about why this is so.38
We asked this question separately regarding two types of lawyer use: first,
hiring an external consultant lawyer by way of a retainer fee; and, second,
employing an in-house lawyer. The top reason in both cases was that
‘There is no work which requires a lawyer’s help’ (as to the external
consultant lawyer: 45.9% and as to the in-house lawyer 46.2%), followedby the reasons: ‘There is no preparedness to use lawyers’ (28.7% and30.1%), ‘Lawyers’ fees are too high’ (24.8% and 25.1%) and ‘Difficult to
calculate costs and benefits of lawyer’s work’ (22.3% and 27.4%). The rankorder of the answers in the two questions is very similar, especially in the
top five responses, except that the rankings of ‘The standards of fees forwork are unclear’ and ‘Lawyers’ fees are too high’ are exchanged. Tosummarise, most Japanese corporations that do not utilise lawyers saythat they have no work which requires a lawyer’s help and they have no
preparedness to use lawyers.
We interpret these results to mean that most Japanese corporations
do not know how to use lawyers profitably in daily business activities,
which may be directly related to the fact that Japanese corporate
managers have no fixed role-image of lawyers in daily business activities.
Further, because they do not know how to use lawyers, they answeredthat they have no preparedness to do so. We also extrapolate reluctanceon behalf of corporate managers to supervise lawyers, because lawyers are
regarded as highly independent professionals.
Relationship between the Need for Lawyers andOther Law-related Professionals
As discussed, there are various kinds of law-related non-lawyer professionals in Japan who support corporate business activities. To better
understand the divide between lawyer and non-lawyer work, we asked
corporations what work they each perform and how they use, and want touse, law-related professionals and lawyers in their daily businessactivities. The most often used law-related professional excluding lawyers
is the tax accountant (76.3%), followed by the judicial scrivener (57.3%),
the public consultant on social and labour insurance (42.8%) and the2010]

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certified public accountant (42.2%). We sorted the rate of use of lawrelated professionals including lawyers according to size of corporation. As
may be expected, lawyers, certified public accountants and public consultants on social and labour insurance are used in larger corporations andtax accountants and SME management consultants are utilised in small
and middle size corporations.
The use of lawyers and other law-related professionals is clearly
influenced by the division of work in Japanese corporations generally. In
larger corporations, taxation and business diagnosis (matters that tend to
fall into the professional fields of tax accountant and SME management
consultant) are dealt with by the corporation’s own employees who
specialise in those types of work. Court-related matters, business accounting review and social insurance matters (which belong to the professional
field of the lawyer, the certified public accountant and the public consultant on social and labour insurance) are generally not dealt with inhouse. One reason may be that corporations do not maintain this type of
professional speciality on an ongoing basis. Another may be that thesefields are seen as being limited by legally sanctioned service-monopolisation.39 Even larger corporations with ongoing legal matters, however,appear likely to outsource certain legal work to external lawyers, certified
public accountants, and public consultants on social and labour insurance.
Preference to Use Law-related Professionals inJapanese Corporations
We also asked respondents about their preference for using law-related
professionals, including lawyers, when it comes to major law-related work.
If the law-related work also related to business consulting, corporations
first seek advice from a certified public accountant (36.6%), second, a tax
accountant (32.2%), third, a lawyer (30.9%) and, fourth, an SME management consultant (28.4%).
As expected, if the law-related work also relates to human resource
management, corporations first turn to public consultants on social andlabour insurance (72.2%) and then to lawyers (34.4%). As we also
expected, the ranking of the law-related professionals whom corporations
want to utilise for law-related work involving financial management was:first, tax accountants (63.4%) and second certified public accountants(52.2%). The ranking of the lawyer (11.6%) is lower than that of thefinancial planner (24.1%).
Corporations did not appear to perceive brand value management asa law-related issue, telling us that they did ‘not want to use any one inthis list’ for such work (30.3%), although lawyers ranked second (29.1%),
followed by certified public accountants (18.8%) and SME management

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consultants (17.5%). Once again, tax accountants were the first priority inrelation to law-related general assistance for corporate management(49.1%), followed by lawyers (47.8%), certified public accountants (44.1%),
public consultants on social and labour insurance (26.6%) and SME
management consultants (22.2%).
Comparing these answers to the questions about the relationshipbetween lawyers and other law-related professionals, the perceived needfor lawyers in Japanese corporations is relatively high when consideredfrom the perspective of law-related work. However, corporations tend toseek the assistance of law-related professionals other than lawyers in thefirst instance. One reason may be the perceived specialisation required toperform the work, which corporations attribute to law-related professionals who are not lawyers. The more specialised professionals become,the higher the barriers to entry into their field. Every law-related profession in Japan has constructed its own niche and segregated its own fieldfrom the other profession’s niches. In some cases, professional associations
even have agreements on the segregation between professional fields.40 In
light of this entrenched professional segregation, corporations have cometo regard lawyers as a specialist professional with their own niche; that is,
court-related legal work.
The Need for Lawyers in Japanese Corporations under‘Ideal Conditions’
We also asked corporations about the need for lawyers under ‘ideal
conditions’; that is, whether corporations are able to engage lawyers onsuitable occasions for reasonable fees. By asking corporations about theirneed for lawyers under ‘ideal conditions’, we hoped to clarify the need forlawyers in daily business activities – all other factors being equal. We
asked the respondents to rate their level of willingness to use lawyers in
relation to 30 typical fields of legal work in corporations from 1. ‘notwilling to use’, through 2. ‘rather not willing to use’, 3. ‘neutral’, and 4.
‘rather willing to use’, to 5. ‘willing to use’ (see Figure 2-1).
In ‘ideal conditions’, corporations said that they were most likely touse lawyers for the following types of legal work, in order of highest to
lowest popularity: ‘defensive allegation’, ‘negotiation for disputesettlement’, ‘damage suit’, ‘special technical suit’, ‘litigation for the
purpose of competitive strategy’, ‘collection of monetary debt’, and‘enforcement of obligations’. All these fields are ex-post reactive legal
practices relating to litigation or disputes. ‘Special technical suit’ and‘litigation for the purpose of competitive strategy’ are ranked at fourth andfifth, which suggests that corporations are concerned about new types of
litigation. After the litigation/dispute work, the second highest type of

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F igure 2- 1 L evels of willingness of 30 typic al legal works under theideal c ondition
0%

20%

40%

60%

n=320
80%

100%

Defensive allegation
Negotiation for dispute settlement
Damage suit
S pecial technic al suit
Litigation for the purpose of competitive strategy
Collec tion of monetary debt
Enforcement of obligation
Legal searchContract examination
Drafting of contract for international trade
Response to M&A ac tion
Drafting of c ontract for domestic trade
S ettlement of the sexual harrasment casePrevention of the shareholders representative suit
Development of CS R
Contrac t negotiation
Intellctual property management
Protec tion of personal data and management of information security
Employment adjustment inc luding dismissal
Preparation for general of shareholders
Negotiation with external labour union
Labour- management negotiation
General advice for business strategy
Management of c orporate brandEnviromental risk management
Human resourc e management
Asset management
Corporate pension management
Tax administration
Financial fund management

unwilling to use

partly willing to use

neutralwilling to usevery willing to use

work is ‘legal search’ and ‘contract examination’, ‘drafting of contract forinternational trade’, ‘response to M&A action’, ‘drafting of contract fordomestic trade’, ‘settlement of the sexual harassment case’, ‘prevention of
the shareholders representative suit’, ‘development of CSR’ and ‘contract
negotiation’, which mainly reflect preventive legal work. This second
highest group is noteworthy, because it mostly involves important legal
work which is also performed by employees of corporations. Conversely,
the types of work for which corporations are least likely to use lawyers
even in ‘ideal conditions’ relate to ‘human resource management’, ‘asset
management’, ‘corporate pension management’, ‘tax administration’ and‘financial fund management’. Corporations simply do not expect lawyers todeal with this type of work, because it is traditionally dealt with by
non-lawyer sections of the corporation or outsourced to law-related
professionals other than lawyers, such as tax accountants or public consul-

284Asian Law

[Vol 12tants on social and labour insurance. Accordingly, Japanese corporations
still mainly expect lawyers to deal with ex-post reactive legal work
concerning disputes, reflecting the traditional barrister-like role-imageof lawyers in Japan. The corporations’ need for preventive legal workand management support work, however, is fairly high in ‘ideal conditions’, and there is concern about new types of litigation. Finance andaccounting-related work is still not expected of lawyers.

Relationship between Japanese Corporations and Lawyers:
Findings of the Questionnaire Survey on the Legal Work of
Private Practice Lawyers
Profile of the Respondents in Survey B
The purpose of questionnaire Survey B was to find out more about the typeof work being performed by private practice lawyers and their required
quality and vocational awareness. Although the survey was sent to a random selection of Osaka Bar Association (OBA) members, we found someinteresting trends in the profiles of our respondents. These are important
to bear in mind when considering the data. We received responses frommany senior lawyers (older than 60 years old: 43.8%),41 who graduatedfrom the Supreme Court’s Legal Training and Research Institute (LTRI: a
compulsory requirement for admission in Japan) many years before therespondents to Survey C, which focused on corporate in-house lawyers (thegraduates of the 1st [1947] to 29th term [1975] of the LTRI course: 38.1%).
Further, we received only a few responses from female lawyers(17%).42 Almost half of the respondents answered that their annual
incomes were between 10 million and 30 million yen (AUD$120,400–$361,200: 48.4%). Respondents were almost equally divided between
single-lawyer offices and those from joint-operation offices (single-lawyer
offices: 50.6% and joint-operation offices: 48.5%). Associate lawyers43 madeup one-quarter of all the respondents (24%). In other words, three-quartersof respondents were solo practitioners or partners at a law office.44 The
annual income per law office (in 2007 fiscal year) was around 50 million
yen (AUD$602,000).
Lawyers in Private Practice
We asked the lawyers of OBA in private practice about the most common
legal work that they performed, using a list of 58 types of legal work. We
wanted to contrast the type of legal work being performed by private
practice lawyers to those lawyers working in-house. Respondents could
choose as many that applied, as set out in Figure 3-1. The items are sorted
according to the number of responses; the items located at the top being
the most common type of work performed by private practice lawyers.

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Private practice lawyers mainly deal with ‘divorce’, ‘inheritance’, ‘personalbankruptcy’, ‘adjustment of debts’, ‘restitution claim for undue profit
caused by prohibited high interest rate’,45 ‘car accident’, ‘land and building
lease dispute’, ‘real estate dealing dispute’, ‘drafting and reviewing contract’, ‘tort claim’ and so on. Most of these are regarded as typical personal

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legal issues, involving court procedures. In relation to corporate-related
legal work, only ‘drafting and reviewing contracts’ is ranked in the top 10.
These results reflect the status of most of the lawyers in OBA in private
practice; that is, solo practitioners or lawyers in small law offices.
We also specifically asked OBA private practice lawyers about themost common legal work performed for corporations, which was the main
purpose of Survey B. We showed them a list of 33 types of legal work, andasked them about the frequency of their work experiences. Respondents
answered the question at five levels of frequency (see Figure 3-2).
The five most common types of legal work within the field of corporate
practice were, from the top, ‘defensive allegation’, ‘contract examination’,‘negotiation for dispute settlement’, ‘damage suit’ and ‘collection of monetary debt’, followed by the next five most frequent types of work ‘draftingof contract for domestic trade’, ‘enforcement of obligation’, ‘legal search’,‘legal consultation’ and ‘contract negotiation’. These are mostly ex-postreactive types of legal work concerning disputes, except for ‘contract
examination’, which is important preventive legal work for corporations.
The next five most common types of legal work are mostly preventive andrelate to the daily business activities of a corporation. Conversely, theranking of legal work which relates to corporate management is low;financial and tax management work was ranked at the lowest level. These
results correspond to the findings from Survey A (see Figure 2-1). Private
practice lawyers mainly do ex-post reactive legal work concerning disputes
even in the field of corporate practice, but they also deal frequently withpreventive legal matters. We extrapolate that private practice lawyers
themselves also adhere to the traditional role-image of lawyers. They do
not seem willing to deal with corporate legal matters which do not relate
to court work or dispute settlement – however, when pushed by the corporate needs, they deal with some preventive legal work for corporations.

Relationship between Corporations and Lawyers: Findingsof the Questionnaire Survey on the Corporate In-house
Lawyers
Profile of the Respondents in Survey C
The purpose of questionnaire Survey C was to find out more about thetype of work being performed by in-house lawyers46 and their required
quality and vocational awareness. In comparison with respondents toSurvey B, in-house lawyers were much younger; 82.4% of the respondents
were 30-50 years old47 and most were much more recent graduates of theSupreme Court’s Legal Training an Research Institute 50th [1996] to 60thterm [since 2006] of the LTRI course (70.6%). Further, the percentage offemale lawyers was higher than for Survey B (39.7%).48

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F igure 3- 2 F requent c orporate legal works of Osaka lawyers in private
prac tic e
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

n=195
100%

Defensive allegation
Contract examination
Negotiation for dispute settlement
Damage suit
Collection of monetary debt
Drafting of contract for domestic trade
Enforcement of obligation
Legal search
Legal consultation
Contract negotiation
S pecial technical suit
Punitive measure including dismissal
Legal response to customer
Corporate compliance
Human resource management
General advice for business strategy
Preparation for general of shareholders
Labour- management negotiation
S ettlement of sexual harassment and/or workplace bullying
Litigation against the trade rival
Protection of personal data and management of information
security
Employment adjustment including dismissal
Development of in- house whistle- blower system
Response to the M&A action
Response to the violence toward corporation
Prevention of the shareholders representative suitIntellctual property management
Drafting of contract for international trade
Corporate brand management
Asset management
Legal support for international trade
Tax management
Enviromental risk management

no experiencea little experiencesome experience

experienced

very experienced

routine work

Three-quarters of respondents (73.5%) have been in service less than
three years, and more than one-quarter of them less than one year
(35.3%). The group of respondents whose annual salary is between 10
million and 30 million yen was the largest (44.6%). Almost two-thirds of
respondents belong to corporations who employ more than 1000 people(64.7%). The majority of in-house lawyers are the only lawyer in their own
corporation (55.2%), but a significant number said that their corporation
had ‘more than two lawyers’ (44.6%). Where we received responses from
more than one lawyer in the same corporation we have counted them as
separate responses.

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[Vol 12Many in-house lawyers are employed in ‘finance and insurance’(32.4%), followed by ‘manufacturing industry’ (22.1%). Significantly, onethird of their corporate employers (35.3%) were Japanese subsidiaries offoreign corporations.49

Work Experience of Corporate In-house Lawyers
We asked corporate in-house lawyers about the most common type ofwork that they perform, using a list of 37 types of typical corporate legal
work. The frequency of work was asked at 6 levels from 0: ‘no experience’,
1. ‘a little experience’, 2. ‘some experience’, 3. ‘experienced’, 4. ‘very
experienced’, 5. ‘routine work’. In Figure 4-1, we set out the types of legal
work according to their score.
The most frequent five types of work performed by in-house lawyers,
from the top, are ‘contract examination’, ‘drafting of contract for domestic
trade’, ‘legal search’, ‘corporate compliance’ and ‘legal consultation’, which
are mainly general preventive legal work. The next group ranked 5 to 10
is ‘coordination of work with external lawyers’, ‘general advice about
management strategy’, ‘controlling legal department’, ‘protection of personal data and management of information security’ and ‘negotiation for
dispute settlement’, which are management-type work also performed bylegal or other departments of corporations (excepting ‘negotiation for
dispute settlement’).
According to the data, while the most common type of legal work
performed by private practice lawyers is ex-post reactive work concerning
disputes supports the findings in Survey A and Survey B (see Figures 2-1
and 3-2 respectively). In other words, the major work of in-house lawyers
is mostly preventive legal work or management work for the organisation.
Notably, in-house lawyers also coordinate the work of outside lawyers (seeFigure 4-1, sixth ranked type of work).
In summary, private practice lawyers are unavoidably reactive,
because they provide legal services to clients only after accepting a commission. The position of corporate in-house lawyers is obviously different.
Their work is not only reactive, but also sometimes proactive. Further,
corporate in-house lawyers are also expected to be able to organise
personnel.

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F igure 4- 1 F requent c orporate legal works of in- house lawyers in J apan
N=68
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

C ontract examination
Drafting of contract for domestic trade
Legal search
C orporate compliance
Legal consultation
C ordination works of collaboration with outsider lawyers
General advice about management strategy
C ontrolling legal department
Protection of personal data and management of information
security
Nogotiation for dispute settlement
Drafting of contract for international trade
Human resource management
C ontract negotiation
Defensive allegation
Response to the M&A action
Legal support for international trade
Industrial technical suit
Legal response to customer
Dept collection
C orporate brand management
Preparation for general of shareholders
Punitive dismissal and disciplinary measures
Enforcement of obligation
Management of in- house whistle- blower system
Intellctual property management
S ettlement of sexual harassment and/ or workplace bullying
S pecial technical suit
Damage suit
Employment adjustment including dismissal
Response to the violence toward corporation
Asset management
Tax management
Enviromental risk management
Labour- management negotiation
Prevention of the shareholders representative suit
Litigation against the trade rival
Pension fund management
no experiencea little experiencesome experience

experienced

very experienced

routine work

Conclusion: The ‘Proper’ Population of Lawyers in JapanThe results from Survey A suggest that the rate at which lawyers are usedin Japanese corporations is very low, driven by the traditional barristerlike role-image of lawyers who are independent and only concern themselves with court procedure or dispute settlement. Japanese corporations
regard lawyers as one of many specialised independent professionals who
provide law-related professional services. They still do not have a fixed
image to use lawyers profitably in daily business activities.
Survey B confirms the findings in Survey A. According to Survey B,
lawyers in private practice still mainly practise old style ex-post legal
work concerning court procedure or dispute settlement, and the same

290

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[Vol 12tendency is also true of their corporate-related work. Private practicelawyers themselves also adhere to the traditional role-image of lawyer andthey seem unwilling to deal with corporate legal matters that do not relate
to court work or dispute settlement. Although the senior age of the
respondents from private practice may have intensified this vision oflawyering amongst respondents, so long as lawyers themselves foster a
traditional role-image, they will continue to share the legal market withother law-related professionals with no competition between them.
Accordingly, the traditional role-image of lawyers held by corporations and lawyers does not leave much room for expanding the populationof lawyers in Japan. To change this situation and expand the market for
more lawyers, this traditional role-image of lawyers in corporate society inJapan must change.
As indicated in Survey C, in-house lawyers play a quite differentrole from the traditional role-image of lawyers in Japanese corporations.
In-house lawyers usually perform preventive legal work and support
management. They perform preventive legal work efficiently using thewide range of legal knowledge and skills fostered by court-related training
at the Legal Training and Research Institute, and support managementby their confidentiality privilege and their network of lawyers belonging to
the bar association. According to the results of Survey A, the potential
corporate need for preventive legal work and lawyers who can support
management is high. Accordingly, we expect that the number of in-houselawyers will increase rapidly. If in-house lawyers become popular, therole-image of lawyers in corporations will be dramatically changed and,affected by this, the lawyers themselves may successfully sell a new roleimage to Japanese corporate society.
The lawyer’s image of the ‘independent professional’ is also an
obstacle to increasing the number of in-house lawyers in Japanese corporations. According to the powerful image of the independent professional,
corporations are not likely to hire in-house lawyers for daily corporate
legal work. However, according to Survey C, in-house lawyers play animportant role as loyal employees in top corporations in Japan. Oncesmaller corporations hire an in-house lawyer, it is likely that managers
will recognise that lawyers can play a useful role as an employee. Their
population could then expand to a number that better corresponds to theirpotential needs.
Our three questionnaire surveys also raise further research questions. A high rate of corporations in Japan with in-house lawyers, forexample, are foreign; and almost 40% of in-house lawyers are women. We
plan to conduct additional surveys to analyse these trends further. We

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Redefining the Japanese Legal Profession

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also plan to survey lawyers in large law firms and non-lawyers working inlegal departments.
The number of Japanese corporate in-house lawyers has been
increasing rapidly since 2000 (see Figure 5-150), now over 400.51 Many
more lawyers who belong to a private law firm are working at corporations
temporarily on a project basis, possibly as a result of the current highawareness of corporate compliance and CSR. If the number of corporate
in-house lawyers increases and their presence is much enlarged, more
Japanese corporations will begin to recognise the usefulness of lawyers fordaily business activities. These tendencies are likely to change the roleimage of lawyers in Japanese corporate society greatly and this could
generate a greater need to use external lawyers. This will create jobs forthe larger population of lawyers generated by the recent legal system
reforms in Japan.

F igure 5- 1 Number of c orporate in- house lawyers andlawyers in J apan
30000

412

Lawyers
In- house lawyers

450
400

25000

346

300

20000
242

250

15000
165

10000

5000

110
64

79

122

89

200
150

number of in- house lawyers

number of lawyers

350

100
50
0

19
5
19 0
5
19 5
6
19 0
6
19 5
70
19
7
19 5
80
19
8
19 5
9
19 0
9
20 5
0
20 0
0
20 1
0
20 2
0
20 3
04
20
0
20 5
06
20
0
20 7
0
20 8
09

0

In the future, Japanese corporations will be unable to avoid enlarging
their legal compliance and CSR. Corporate in-house lawyers are likely tobe needed as reliable advisers on these types of legal work. The legal

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[Vol 12

education in Japanese law schools will also need to change to keep up withthese trends and a new demand for corporate in-house lawyers.

Notes
*

**
†
1

2

3

4

5

6
7

8

9
10

Professor of Law, Graduate School of Law and Politics, Osaka University. The empirical
data presented in this article was used in an earlier publication in Japanese (Fukui andFukui, 2010). Regarding this original paper, the preface and the final part were written
by Kota Fukui, and the main empirical-analytical part of the paper was written by
Yusuke Fukui. The main translator from Japanese to English is Kota Fukui, withcorrections and comments by Yusuke Fukui. The figures were translated by Yusuke
Fukui. For the purposes of this article we have substantially revisited the data with theassistance of our editor, Stacey Steele. We are also grateful for the support of ourcolleagues at Osaka University who assisted us with this research.
Adjunct Project Researcher, Graduate School of Law and Politics, Osaka University. He
is also a Part-time Lecturer of Sociology at Nishinihon Junior College.
Associate Director (Japan), Asian Law Centre, Melbourne Law School, University of
Melbourne.
On the establishment of the JSRC, see Ronten Seiri, 1999, citing art 2 of the Law concerning Establishment of Justice System Reform Council (shihōseido kaikaku shingikai
setchi hō).
As discussed in more detail in this article, we use the English term ‘lawyer’ to refer tothe concept of a ‘bengoshi’, that is, a person admitted to practise law in Japan. The term
‘attorney’ is also sometimes used. The Ministry of Justice uses ‘attorney’, but ‘attorney’is arguably US-centric. Unless otherwise noted, translations of legislation in this article
are taken from Japanese Law Translation.
The ideas and recommendations published by the JSRC in relation to the legal
profession were not necessarily new, but the authority of the JSRC, having been
appointed by the Cabinet and promoted as a key reform initiative by the Liberal
Democratic Party, and the high level of public awareness of its role gave its recommendations a new impetus. See, for example, Rokumoto, 2005.
Our research project is titled ‘The Construction of the Grand Design of New Fields ofLegal Profession’. Further details of our funding, data and analysis may be accessed inJapanese at Osaka University, <http://legalprofession.law.osaka-u.ac.jp>. We collected
information on various issues, but this article focuses on the perceived problem of thesmall legal population in Japan.
The 2008 election campaign for the president of the JFBA provided a recent example ofthe passionate debate about the population of lawyers in Japan. See, for example,
JFBA, Kinkyū Teigen, 2008.
An increase in the number of lawyers in Japan has also been supported on the basis ofsocial justice reasons. See, for example, Miyazawa, 2007a.
For a discussion of how to measure the change brought by the legal reforms, seeAronson, 2009. Aronson adopts the expansion of the role of (elite) lawyers as a standard
for the transformational change brought by the legal reforms in the field of corporate
legal practice.
The first formal regulation of lawyers (bengoshi) in Japan may be traced to February
1876, when the Attorney Rules (daigen nin kisoku) were promulgated. ‘Daigen nin’ wasa private court advocate in early Meiji era. As to this point, see Japan Federation of Bar
Association, <http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/en/about/profile.html>.
The number of Japanese lawyers as of 1 August 2010 is 28,769: see JFBA Statistics,
1950-2009.
For information about the increasing population of lawyers from 1950 to 2009, see
JFBA Statistics, 1950-2009.

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12
13
14

15
16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

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293

For example, in 2000 in the United States of America there were 1,066,328 lawyers, one
lawyer for every 264 people in the country: Carson, 2000. In 2006, France had 45,686
lawyers and the United Kingdom had 151,043: Council of Bars and Law Societies of theEuropean Union, 2010.
On the relationship between the small number of lawyers and the low pass rate of thebar examination, see Rokumoto, 2005: 9.
See, for example, Anderson and Ryan, 2010; Aizawa, 2006; Kashiwagi, 2010; andYoshida, 2006.
See Attorney Act (bengoshi hō, art 3(1)): ‘The duties of an attorney, upon the request of
the party or the concerned parties, or upon the entrustment of public agency, shall be toengage in acts relating to lawsuits, non-contentious cases, and objections, request for reexamination, appeals, and other petitions against administrative agencies and othergeneral legal services’.
On the changing image of lawyers in Japan since the 19th century, see Hamano, 2002.
A specialised legal profession for conveyance and property registration, legal documentation and submission for judicial agencies. By the amendment of the Judicial
Scrivener Act in 2002, they can deal with court work limited to the summary court if
they obtain special certification by the Ministry of Justice. They call themselves ‘shihoshoshi lawyer’ on their website in English. See Japan Federation of Shisho-Shoshi
Lawyers Association, <http://www.shiho-shoshi.or.jp/english/>.
A specialised legal profession for administrative documentation and submission toadministrative agencies. See the official website of administrative scriveners,<http://www.gyosei.or.jp/> (only in Japanese).
We use the term ‘tax accountant’ for zeirishi, which is a specialised law-related
profession for documentation and submission of income tax returns, tax consultationand consultation for tax review. See Japan Federation of Certified Tax Accountants
Association, <http://www.nichizeiren.or.jp/eng/>.
A specialised law-related profession for documentation, consultation and submissions
relating to social and labour insurance. See the official website of the association of
public consultants on social and labour insurance, <http://www.shakaihokenroumushi.
jp/> (only in Japanese).
A specialised law-related profession for submission and consultation of patent, design
and trademark filings. See Japan Patent Attorneys Association, <http://www.jpaa.or.
jp/english/>.
As of 1 August 2010, the number of judicial scriveners is 19,706, administrative
scriveners is 40,475, tax accountants is 71,672, patent attorneys is 8715 and public
consultants on social and labour insurance is 33,849. In total the number of lawyers asof 1 August 2010 is 28,769 and the total number of ‘legal professionals’ is 203,186. Seeeach legal professionals’ association homepage (see notes 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20).
See art 72 of the Attorney Act (bengoshi hō): ‘No person other than an attorney or a
Legal Professional Corporation may, for the purpose of obtaining compensation, engage
in the business of providing legal advice or representation, handling arbitration
matters, aiding in conciliation, or providing other legal services in connection with any
lawsuits, non-contentious cases, or objections, requesting for re-examination, appeals
and other petitions against administrative agencies, etc, or other general legal services,or acting as an intermediary in such matters; provided, however, that the foregoingshall not apply if otherwise specified in this Act or other laws’.
A public qualification for SME diagnosticians and operational consultants. Although
they are corporate management consultants, they sometimes give law-related advice.
See Japan Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultants Association,<http://www.j-smeca.jp/contents/018_english_contents.html>.
A certified professional performing accounting and financial audits. Although they arecorporate management consultants, they sometimes give law-related advice. See
Japanese Institution of Certified Public Accountants <http://www.hp.jicpa.or.jp/english/
index.html>.

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26

27

28

29

30

31
32

33

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Recently, some questionnaire surveys have been conducted by JFBA. See the website of
JFBA, <http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/ja/committee/list/gyoumu_suishin.html>.
In art 2 of Basic Act on SMEs (chushō kigyō kihon hō), the standard of less than 100
employees is used for defining a middle size enterprise in the field of wholesale tradeand service business.
The OBA is a local bar association in Osaka prefecture. In Japan, there are 52 local bar
associations, one for each district court region (basically defined along prefectural lines,
plus three bar associations in Tokyo for historical reasons and four bar associations in
Hokkaido because there are four district court jurisdictions in Hokkaido).
Osaka prefecture is located in the middle western region of Japan. Osaka is the largest
business area in western Japan. As of July 2010, the population of Osaka prefecture is8,839,418, the third largest behind Tokyo prefecture (13,039,875) and Kanagawa
prefecture (9,028,302). As of 2009, Osaka prefecture’s GDP was the second largest inJapan at about 39 trillion yen (AUD$469.6 billion) (cf Tokyo prefecture, about 92 trillion
yen, AUD$1.1 trillion). The number of the lawyers in Osaka Bar Association is 3577 (asof 1 August 2010). From the point of view of its population, GDP and number oflawyers, Osaka is a metropolitan area. Almost all large Japanese corporations havetheir headquarters in Tokyo; most of the corporations that have their headquarters in
Osaka are SMEs. From this point of view, Osaka also has the character of a local area.
See Osaka Prefecture Government, <http://www.pref.osaka.jp/en/introduction/>.
If we conducted a questionnaire survey on the legal work of private practice lawyers inTokyo, we may speculate that their work is much more business oriented than the work
performed by lawyers in Osaka. In this regard, however, we believe that Tokyo is theoutlier; excepting Tokyo, the tendency of lawyers’ work remains in the very traditional
style.
Survey C does not include administrative in-house lawyers who work at government orother public offices, because the purpose of the survey was to better understand theneed for lawyers in Japanese corporations. According to Bengoshi Hakusyo, 2009, as of 1
June 2009, there were 81 administrative in-house lawyers. Since the establishment of
the Japan Legal Support Center (hōterasu) in 2006, about 200 lawyers are working as
in-house lawyers for the Center. See the website of the Japan legal Support Center,<http://www.houterasu.or.jp/content/kaiken_shiryo100412_2.pdf>.
For information on the changing number of corporate in-house lawyers, see JILA
Statistics, 2009b.
All of Japan’s 52 local bar associations are affiliated with the Japan Federation of Bar
Associations (JFBA). Lawyers in Japan cannot provide legal services if they aren’t
registered with the JFBA (see art 9 of the Attorney Act (bengoshi hō)). Accordingly, thelawyer search engine on the website of the JFBA covers all of the lawyers who are
registered with the JFBA.
A lawyer who is not employed by the client but retained by it by way of payment of aregular fee. Komon bengoshi give legal advice when the client experiences difficulties.
Japanese corporations retain komon bengoshi as a precaution. The market priceretainer is said to be from 50,000 yen (AUD$600) to 200,000 yen (AUD$2400) per
month.
From 2006 to 2007, the JFBA also conducted a questionnaire survey on the legal needsof Japanese SMEs. Its results suggest that only 19.5% of the respondents retain theirown external consultant lawyer by way of a retainer fee, and 16.2% of the respondents
answered that they do not retain their own consultant lawyer but can get legal advice
from a lawyer they know, if required. 61.5% of the respondents (SMEs) answered thatthey do not get any legal advice from a lawyer even when they have a legal problem.
The results of this JFBA questionnaire survey for Japanese SMEs correspond with theresults from our Survey A. As to this survey, see the JFBA website, <http://www.
nichibenren.or.jp/ja/committee/list/data/chusho_chousakekka.pdf>.
To our surprise, while some small sized corporations hire in-house lawyers, no
respondent corporations with staff of more than 300 answered that they have hired inhouse lawyer. We know that super large global corporations hire in-house lawyers. For

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39

40

41

42

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further information about corporations which hire in-house lawyers see the JILA
Statistics, 2009a. One reason for this anomalous result may be the small number of
respondents who answered that they hire in-house lawyers. Further, large corporations
with over 300 employees are more likely to have their own non-lawyer legal
departments which satisfy their legal needs.
Translation of these Acts are based on Japanese Law Translation.
From October to November 2006, the JFBA also conducted a questionnaire survey on
the hiring of in-house lawyers in major domestic and foreign corporations in Japan.
They sent questionnaires to 3795 domestic and 1457 foreign corporations and collected
answers from 1446 corporations. According to this survey, 3.9% of the respondents
employ in-house lawyers, and 6.7% of them were accepting applications from lawyers,
currently planning or discussing to recruit in-house lawyers. We understand from this
JFBA survey that the desire for lawyers in corporations in Japan is high. As to thisquestionnaire survey, see the JFBA website, <http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/ja/
committee/list/ data/soshikinai_bengoshi_torikumi.pdf>. Contrary to this, the JFBA’s
questionnaire survey on the legal needs in Japanese SMEs, conducted from 2006 to
2007, shows that only 1 in 3214 respondents hired a qualified lawyer. As to this questionnaire survey, see the JFBA website, <http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/ja/committee/list/
data/chusho_gaiyou.pdf>. The difference between the results of these two surveys
suggests a gap between a lawyer’s role in a major corporation versus SMEs, which also
reflects the results from our Survey C.
The reasons we suggested are as follows: ‘there is no work which requires a lawyer’s
help’, ‘there is no preparedness to utilise lawyers’, ‘lawyers’ fees are too high’, ‘difficult to
calculate costs and benefits of lawyer’s work’, ‘the standards of fees for work areunclear’, ‘anxious about lawyer’s integrity’, ‘already utilising non-lawyer staff worker(s)’,‘anxious about lawyer’s ability’, ‘lawyers lack in flexibility’ and another reason (freeanswer).
Article 72 of the Attorney Act (bengoshi hō) prohibits the provision of legal services by
non-lawyers for the purpose of obtaining compensation. Other law-related professionals
have their own legislation permitting them to provide their own limited, specialised
legal services, though lawyers can also provide the services which they provide
according to the Attorney Act.
The professional associations’ agreements on segregation between the professional
fields might seem an unreasonable restraint of trade from the point of view of freecompetition and it might be regarded as illegal according to art 3 of the Act on
Prohibition of Private Monopolization and Maintenance of Fair Trade (dokusen kinshihō). These agreements have been supported, however, by the relevant governmental
ministry (law-related professionals other than lawyers have their own relevant
governmental ministry) and, in some cases, are backed up by legislation.
According to the JFBA Census 2008, lawyers over 61 years old accounted for 34.4% oflawyers; the rate of senior age lawyers over 60 years old in our survey was 43.8%. One
reason for the high percentage of senior aged lawyer respondents may have been that
middle aged lawyers are generally busier, and senior lawyers have more time to answer
the questionnaire.
According to the JFBA Census 2008, the female lawyer rate in the JFBA is only 12.2%.
Accordingly, the rate of 17% female respondents to our Survey B is relatively high. The
rate of female lawyer respondents in our Survey C, which is conducted on in-houselawyers, was very high at 39.7%.
‘Kinmu bengoshi’ is similar to the position of a young associate lawyer in countries suchas Australia or the United States of America, but, in some rare cases, a senior lawyer
with a lot of experience may work as a kinmu bengoshi in a law firm to control theirworkload.
In Osaka and other areas excepting Tokyo most of the law offices are small law offices
with less than five lawyers. Therefore, most of the respondents who answered that they
were a partner in a law office are still likely to be part of a sole or small practitioner
firm. In Japan, there are only seven law firms with more than 100 lawyers according to

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[Vol 12the lawyer search engine on the website of the JFBA. In Osaka, only Oh-Ebashi LPC &Partners, with 94 lawyers (61 in Osaka Office, 33 in Tokyo Office, as of 4 July 2010), isin the top 10 law firms by size (ranked 8th). See the official website of Oh-Ebashi,<http://www.ohebashi.com/index_en.html>.
‘Restitution claim for undue profit caused by prohibited high interest rate’ (kabaraikin
henkan seikyū) relates to recent amendments to consumer credit law in Japan. See
Kozuka and Nottage, 2007.
In addition to ‘employment’, there are other types of labour contracts used to engage
lawyers, including ‘authorisation’ or ‘business commission’. 89.7% of the respondents toSurvey C have ‘employment’ contracts, 5.9% have ‘authorisation’ contracts, and 4.4%
have ‘other’ types of arrangements.
According to the JFBA Census 2008, 37.3% of lawyers are 31-50 years old; accordingly,
82.4% of respondents being 30-50 years old is an extremely high percentage.
Compared to the JFBA Census 2008 figure of only 12.2%, the percentage of female
lawyer respondents of 39.7% is high.
These results correspond to JILA Statistics, 2009a.
Figure 5-1 reflects the transition of the total number of lawyers in Japan since 1950 andthat of corporate in-house lawyers in Japan since 2001 based on JFBA Statistics, 19502009 and the JILA Statistics, 2009b.
According to the most recent data on the website of the JILA (as of December in 2009),
412 in-house lawyers are working in corporations in Japan. See the JILA Statistics,
2009a.

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html>.

Laws (Japan)
Act on Prohibition of Private Monopolisation and Maintenance of Fair Trade (dokusen kinshihō)Attorney Act (bengoshi hō)
Basic Act on SMEs (chushō kigyō kihon hō)Companies Act (kaisha hō)
Financial Products Transaction Act (kinyū shōhin torihiki hō)
Judicial Scrivener Act in 2002
Law concerning Establishment of Justice System Reform Council (shihōseido kaikaku
shingikai setchi hō)