Japanese Divorce Lawyers:
Their Success After Their Own Divorce
Hiroharu Saito*
This is an empirical study of divorce lawyers’ practices in Japan—
it reports major findings from my survey and interviews. This Article is thefirst to quantitatively describe the details of the characteristics andpractices of Japanese divorce lawyers. This Article is also the first, aroundthe world to my knowledge, to undertake in-depth analyses of the impactsof lawyers’ private experiences on their professional practices. It addresses
inter-person disparities of lawyers’ practices—what the determinants oflawyers’ daily practices and behaviors are. In particular, this Article sheds
light on how divorce lawyers’ practices and behaviors are influenced bydivorce- or family-related experiences in their private lives. It analyzes
three important aspects of divorce lawyers’ practices in Japan: (i) incomes;(ii) fees; and (iii) disputing behaviors. Key findings about Japanese divorce
lawyers: (i) lawyers with an experience of own divorce, parents’ divorce or
having a child have higher incomes; (ii) lawyers with an own divorce
experience have higher odds of requesting an overall contingency fee toclients; (iii) lawyers with an experience of own divorce have lower ratios ofdivorce litigations to divorce conciliations. These findings indicate thatlawyers’ own divorce- or family-related experiences facilitate them to bebetter divorce lawyers who are more diligent and successful. The
generalized implication is that lawyers’ practices can be positively affectedby their private emotional experiences in the past, which are relevant totheir practice areas.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 2
I. METHOD ................................................................................................ 4
A. Survey ........................................................................................... 4
B. Supplemental Interviews ............................................................... 7
II. CHARACTERISTICS AND PRACTICES OF JAPANESE DIVORCE LAWYERS.. 8
A. Demographic and Private Characteristics ................................... 8
B. Professional Characteristics and Practices ................................. 9
1. Basic Professional Characteristics......................................... 9
2. Female Clients ..................................................................... 10
3. Incomes ............................................................................... 12
4. Fees...................................................................................... 13
5. Disputing Behaviors ............................................................ 15
III. SUCCESSFUL DIVORCE LAWYERS ....................................................... 19
A. Hypothesis Generation ............................................................... 20
1. Literature on Legal Professionals’ Decision Making .......... 20

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2. Hypothesis ........................................................................... 22
B. Selection of Variables ................................................................. 25
1. Literature on Lawyers’ Legal Careers ................................. 25
2. Control Variables ................................................................. 29
C. Analysis of Incomes .................................................................... 30
D. Analysis of Fees .......................................................................... 34
E. Analysis of Disputing Behaviors ................................................ 37
F. Summary of Findings .................................................................. 39
G. Discussion................................................................................... 40
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................. 41
APPENDIX A SUMMARY STATISTICS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF VARIABLES .. 42
APPENDIX B ANALYSES OF OTHER LAWYERS AND OTHER OCCUPATIONS 46
INTRODUCTION
I conducted the first large survey of Japanese divorce lawyers 1 tostudy their characteristics and practices. 2 In Japan, it has been a challenge
for researchers to study lawyers in a specific practice area because local bar
associations and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (the “JFBA”)3 do
not hold any official database of lawyers that includes each lawyer’s
practice areas. There have been several previous surveys of Japanese* Assistant Professor of Law, University of Tokyo. LL.M., Harvard Law School.
M.A. (Education) & LL.B., University of Tokyo. I would like to thank all of the lawyers(survey respondents and interviewees) who kindly participated in this study. For theirhelpful comments and suggestions, I also would like to thank Shozo Ota, Toshiyuki
Kusumoto, Robert B Leflar, Sida Liu, J. Mark Ramseyer, and participants at Japan
Association of Sociology of Law Young Scholars Workshop 2017 (Waseda University,
Tokyo), Law & Society International Meeting 2017 (Mexico City) and Asian Law &Society Association Conference 2017 (National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu). This
study was financially supported by a grant from the Foundation for Research in Civil
Dispute Resolution [Minji Funso Shori Kenkyu Kikin] and a grant from Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science (KAKEN Project 16H06699).
This Article defines the term “divorce lawyer(s)” as “lawyers who have expertisein divorce cases”—more precisely, “lawyers who classify themselves as a lawyer who has
expertise in divorce cases.” See infra Section I.A for the details of the screening.
1

See also AUSTIN SARAT AND WILLIAM L. F. FELSTINER, DIVORCE LAWYERS AND
THEIR CLIENTS (1995); LYNN M ATHER ET AL., DIVORCE LAWYERS AT WORK: VARIETIES OF
PROFESSIONALISM IN PRACTICE (2001); ELEANOR E. M ACCOBY & ROBERT H. MNOOKIN,
DIVIDING THE CHILD (1992) for representative examples of studies of divorce lawyers anddivorce case practices in the U.S.
2

There are 52 bar associations in total in Japan—each prefecture has one local
bar association except for Tokyo (with three associations) and Hokkaido (with four
associations). The JFBA is an umbrella organization for all of the local bar associations andall of the lawyers in Japan (all of the practicing lawyers are required to register at the JFBA
as well as at a local bar association). See Organization of the JFBA, JFBA (Oct. 1, 2017),
https://www.nichibenren.or.jp/en/about/us/organization.html.
3Saito3

lawyers regardless of their practice areas. 4 However, those previous studies
have addressed only broad issues relating to the entire lawyers—mostly
addressing lawyers’ legal careers in Japan. In order to uncover the details oflawyers’ practices in a particular area, a survey specifically designed for thatarea needs to be conducted. I made it possible by using a newly emerged
database of Japanese lawyers called Bengoshi.com that has developed in thepast decade.5
In this Article, I report major findings from the survey (and the
supplemental interviews). I focus on the Japanese divorce lawyers’ interperson disparities in their practices and the determinants thereof. In
particular, I shed light on how the lawyers’ divorce- or family-related
experiences (e.g., their own divorce) in private life affect their legal
practices in divorce cases. In more generalized words, I undertake analysesof the impacts of lawyers’ personal private experiences on their professional
practices. The previous surveys of (the entire) Japanese lawyers havealready shown that each lawyer has a different legal career and different
practice areas.6 However, even within the same practice area, their daily
practices and professional behaviors differ largely from lawyer to lawyer;
how lawyers handle their cases are all different. This Article addresses thequestions of how lawyers’ practices actually vary and what factors affectthese variations.
Uncovering the determinants of lawyers’ practices would provide
several pragmatic contributions. First of all, it would help individual
lawyers learn their own ways to improve their practices. It would also bebeneficial for clients when choosing lawyers fit for them. Furthermore, itwould give new insights into how to improve legal education; law schools
may want to introduce programs to explore personal experiences if thelawyers’ private experiences greatly impact their practices. For instance,
simulations of personal emotional experiences (as clients) in addition toprofessional clinical experiences (as legal professionals) may be needed inlegal education.
This Article proceeds in three parts. Part I clarifies the method of thestudy. Part II provides an overview of the characteristics and practices ofJapanese divorce lawyers by quantitatively describing the results of thesurvey—who they are, what they do, and the inter-person disparities in theirpractices. Part II particularly provides intriguing empirical data for readers
who have an interest in Japanese lawyers and Japanese divorce casepractices. Part III analyzes the determinants of those inter-person disparities
in practices among Japanese divorce lawyers. To my knowledge, Part III is4

See infra Section III.B.1.

5

See infra Section I.A.

6

See infra Section III.B.1.

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the first in-depth analysis of the impacts of lawyers’ private experiences on
their professional practices—regardless of geography and jurisdiction.
I.

METHODA.

SurveyI sent out the surveys by mail to 1,000 divorce lawyers all over Japan.
A total of 206 surveys were returned between January and February of 2017
(i.e., with a response rate of 20.60%). I created a dataset of 203 respondents
after excluding three lawyers 7 who had no experience of divorce
conciliation cases in the past ten years. It has been a challenge forresearchers to systematically screen lawyers with a specific area of expertisein Japan because there is no official database of that kind. I overcame thisissue by using a recently emerged commercial database of Japanese lawyers
called Bengo4.com. 8 Bengo4, which is pronounced bengoshi in Japanese,means lawyer(s). The 1,000 lawyers were sampled from a total of 1,970
lawyers9 who had registered divorce/relationship issues as one of their focus
areas on the Bengo4.com database. The way of sampling was proportionate
random stratification by prefecture because lawyers were listed by
prefecture on the database. 10
As for the response rate of 20.60%, it is at the highest level feasible
for a survey of Japanese lawyers.11 Besides, the possible selection bias (ifany) due to the response rate would be even favorable in light of the purposeof the study. A survey specifically designed for divorce lawyers’ practices
would, of course, attract more divorce lawyers who actually engage indivorce cases than apparent divorce lawyers who rarely engage in divorce
cases. 12 Therefore, the respondents to this survey should have a higher

7
One is a freshman lawyer with less than one year of practice. The other two arelawyers with two and three years of practice experience respectively; probably, they are
currently attempting to add divorce cases in their areas of specialty although they have not
yet taken a divorce case.
8

Bengo4.com, BENGO4.COM, INC., https://www.bengo4.com (last visited Aug. 1,

2018).
As of Dec. 13, 2016. See Bengo4.com, BENGO4.COM,
https://www.bengo4.com (on file with the author on Dec. 13, 2016).
9

10

INC.,

Cf. Japan consists of 47 prefectures.

This response rate is consistent with the major surveys of lawyers in Japan. See,e.g., the response rate of Sato & Hamano, infra note 95 (17.95%); Miyazawa et al. (2015),
infra note 97 (19.45%). Given that the two surveys above were formally conducted withauthority of the JFBA, the feasible maximum response rate from Japanese lawyers is
considered around 20%.
11

In fact, one lawyer at my supplemental interview explicitly mentioned he wasattracted by the topic of the survey. See interview with lawyer K (“I got very interested inyour study. [...] I usually do not answer to surveys, but I wanted to know the answers of12

Saito5

proportion of real divorce lawyers than the non-respondents (if there were
any selection bias).
As the present study is the first to use the database of Bengo4.com
for the purpose of an academic survey, I would like to note two issues forthis sampling method. The first issue is about the nature of registrants.
Bengo4.com, launched in 2005 by a private company (Bengo4.com, Inc.),
has recently grown to be an extensive database. It is an online portal site,where registered lawyers have their own profile pages to self-advertise andpotential clients can search lawyers within their neighborhoods. Although
this commercial database is not officially affiliated with the bar associations,
it covers more than 30% of all lawyers in Japan—11,508 registrants at
Bengo4.com 13 out of 37,680 Japanese bar registrants at the time of thesurvey.14 To date, Bengo4.com is the largest public database that enables
researchers to list Japanese lawyers in particular areas of practice. 15 Are
characteristics of the registrants at Bengo4.com different from the nonregistrants? Intuitively, this kind of commercial database may contain morerookies than seniors or more financially unsuccessful lawyers thanprosperous lawyers.
In fact, the use of Bengo4.com has not been active among successful
corporate lawyers. Almost no lawyers from the Japanese “big four” firms16
or other second tier corporate firms have registered on Bengo4.com. In thearea of corporate law, potential clients (corporations) seem not to use thisother lawyers to the questions [of this survey]”).
As of Dec. 13, 2016. See Bengo4.com, BENGO4.COM,
https://www.bengo4.com (on file with the author on Dec. 13, 2016).
13

INC.,

As of Mar. 31, 2016. See JFBA, BENGOSHI HAKUSHO 2017 for the official
comprehensive data of lawyer population.
14

Cf. there is another large database called “Himawari Search,” which also
contains the information of each lawyer’s areas of expertise. This one is administered bythebarassociations.
Himawari
Search,JFBA,
https://www.bengoshikai.jp/search_area.html (last visited Aug. 1, 2018). However,
Bengo4.com has several advantages over Himawari Search. First, Bengo4.com has moreregistrants—nearly double. Second, it is not feasible to use Himawari Search for the
purpose of screening lawyers in a large city. In Himawari Search, the registrant lawyers
can register their specialties in service areas or major service areas. Then, the user cansearch lawyers by the service areas or major service areas in each prefecture. However, it
provides the list of lawyers only when a user specifies searching criteria that fit notexceeding 200 lawyers. For instance, if you search lawyers in Tokyo who register
divorce/custody issue as a major service area, Himawari Search cannot provide the list
because the number of fit lawyers exceeds 200; more detailed specifications are required.
Third, although Himawari Search has two levels of practice categories (service areas andmajor service areas) like Bengo4.com (practice areas and focus areas), major service
areas of Himawari Search are the self-reported ones without any cost for registrant lawyers;thus focus areas—a fee-charging category—in Bengo4.com is more reliable.
15

16
The “big four” firms are Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, Mori Hamada &Matsumoto, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, and Nishimura & Asahi.

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kind of general portal site when retaining lawyers. 17 Also, the corporate
lawyers probably do not need to keep advertising themselves once theybuild a long-term relationship with a sufficient number of corporate clients.
However, in the area of divorce, many potential clients (individuals) indeed
use Bengo4.com or other portal sites to find their lawyers. At my
supplemental interviews, 18 most of the divorce lawyers mentioned theirclients’ active use of Bengo4.com. For example, one lawyer said:
All of them [all of my clients in divorce or relationship cases] arerooted in dot com [Bengo4.com]. We are in such an era now. For a
divorce or relationship issue, you would hesitate to ask friends toseek a lawyer. That would be a reason. In addition, you can searchanything freely on the Internet now.19
The typical way for divorcing clients to retain divorce lawyers thesedays is to search for divorce lawyers in the neighborhood on databases suchas Bengo4.com and shop around them before retaining one. For instance,
one lawyer in Tokyo said:
It is more than seeking a second opinion; clients visit many lawyers.
I frequently encounter clients who say I’m the fifth or tenth lawyer
they meet. [...] I guess they want to find a lawyer who really fits themand a lawyer who they really think good. And, there are many
[lawyers] in Tokyo. [...] [Divorce] is a very big deal in their life forclients, you know.20
The legal market is particularly competitive in Tokyo, but regardlessof their location of practices, the divorce lawyers at the interviews
confirmed that many clients visit more than one lawyer before they actually
decide whom to retain. In the industry of divorce, even the experienced andprosperous divorce lawyers need to keep advertising themselves to obtain
new individual clients because divorce cases are basically one-time jobs.
Therefore, the divorce lawyers who register on the database are more likely
to be comprehensive and non-biased, compared to those in other practiceareas.

Cf. Bengo4.com, Inc. also opened another portal site named Business Lawyers
in 2016, specializing in corporate law. But, it has been less active than Bengo4.com—thenumber of registrants at Business Lawyers is only 677 as of June 3, 2017. See Business
Lawyers, BENGO4.COM, INC., https://business.bengo4.com/lawyer (on file with the author
on June 3, 2017).
17

18

See infra Section I.B for the details of the supplemental interviews.

19Interview with lawyer H.

20

Interview with lawyer G.

Saito7

The second issue is whether the screening based on lawyers’ selfadvertisements is reliable. The focus areas of lawyers on Bengo4.com are
the self-reported ones. However, the registration for the focus areas is a feecharging service, and the monthly fees for lawyers increase based on thenumbers of their registered focus areas. 21 Therefore, those who list
divorce/relationship issues in their focus areas are likely to be the lawyers
who really have expertise in divorce cases. 22 Incidentally, the database has
another non-fee-charging entry called practice areas, in which lawyers canlist as many areas as they would like without any cost. 4,625 lawyers 23
register divorce/relationship issues as one of their practice areas. However,among them, some lawyers are found to list almost all of the areas in theirpractice areas; thus, they may contain those who practice little or no divorce
cases in reality. For this reason, I screened lawyers by their focus areas (feecharging entry) and not by their practice areas (free entry).
B. Supplemental Interviews
In addition to the survey, I conducted one-on-one semi-structured
interviews between November 2016 and March 2018 with nineteen
Japanese lawyers across the country who practice divorce cases. Although
this Article primarily reports the results of the survey, input from theinterviews facilitated hypotheses generation and survey result interpretation.
Therefore, this Article occasionally uses the interview data as supplements.
To maintain anonymity and confidentiality, the interviewees are referred toas “lawyer # (alphabet).” The alphabet was assigned randomly for the
purpose of filing—it is not the lawyer’s initial. All or most of theinterviewees are collectively referred to as the “interviewees.”
Each interview was approximately one hour in duration and was
conducted at the interviewee’s office in most cases.24 All of the interviews
were voice recorded with the permission of the interviewees; they were later
The monthly registration fees for the focus areas are JPY 20,000 for one area,
JPY 30,000 for three areas, JPY 40,000 for five areas, and JPY 50,000 for eight areas. A
total of 17 categories were offered for both of focus areas and practice areas at the time ofthe survey: divorce/relationship issue, debt, inheritance, traffic accident, internet, consumer
affairs,
crime/criminalcase,labor,
debt
collection,
estate/construction,international/foreigners affairs, medical affairs, corporate affairs, tax litigation,
administrative case, litigation/dispute/procedure, civil affairs/others. See A Guide to Feebased
ServicesforRegistrant
Lawyers,
BENGO4.COM,
INC.,
https://www.bengo4.com/lawyer/service_plan/ (on file with the author on Dec. 13, 2016).
21

As a result, the survey respondents’ mean proportion of divorce cases in theirworkloads is about 30%. See infra Section II.B.1.
22

As of Dec. 13, 2016. See Bengo4.com, BENGO4.COM,
https://www.bengo4.com (on file with the author on Dec. 13, 2016).
building.

23

INC.,

24

With three exceptions at a lounge in the bar association building or in the court

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transcribed and coded by myself. Fourteen interviewees were recruited
through the survey and the remaining five interviewees were recruited
separately from the survey. As described in Table 1, a diversity of theinterviewees was ensured when recruiting them.
TABLE 1: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INTERVIEWED DIVORCE LAWYERS
GenderYears of
Practice

Location ofSize of Firm
Exp. of Own
Position at Firm
Firm
(Num. of Lawyers)
DivorceTokyo: 8
Solo: 9Male: 16
Mean: 8.74
Partner/Solo: 15
Provinces: 5
2–3 lawyers: 6
Yes: 4
Female: 3 (Range: 3–19)
Employed: 4
Others: 6
4–10 lawyers: 4
Notes: About the location of the firm, see infra App. A for the detailed definition of eachcategory. As for the size of the firm, one interviewee works for a branch office (with 4–10
lawyers) of a larger law firm (with over 100 lawyers). As for the experience of own divorce,the number includes two interviewees who have experience separation (not legal but de facto
divorce).

II. CHARACTERISTICS AND PRACTICES OF JAPANESE DIVORCE LAWYERS
Part II describes the major characteristics and current practices ofJapanese divorce lawyers, by reporting the summary statistics of the survey
data. I first report the survey respondents’ demographic characteristics andtheir private divorce- and family-related experiences. In addition, I reporttheir professional characteristics and practices including topics of female
clients, incomes, fees, and disputing behaviors. The summary statistics ofmost of the factors (i.e., all of the factors used in the analyses of Part III)are also listed in Appendix A. When discussing the survey results in thisPart II, I generally assume the survey respondents as a representative sampleof Japanese divorce lawyers. 25
A.

Demographic and Private Characteristics

The mean age of the survey respondents is 41.76 years old (SD =10.25, range = 28–80).26 22.39% are female (77.61% are male). Compared25

See supra Section I.A for the details of the sampling method.

Cf. The meanings of technical terms (i.e., the basics of the summary statistics)
used in this Part II are as follows. I report the ratio for dummy variables (e.g., gender) andcategorical variables (e.g., location of firm); I basically report the mean and the standard
deviation for continuous variables (e.g., age). The standard deviation (“SD”) indicates thevariance of the variable; if the value of SD is α, about two third (68%) of the observations
fall between the range of mean ± α. For example, the age of about two third of the
respondents falls between the range of 31.51–52.01 years old—41.76 (mean) ± 10.25 (SD).
For continuous variables, I occasionally report the range (i.e., the minimum and maximum
values) of the variable among all of the observations when it is helpful to describe its
feature. “N” is the number of observations (i.e., the sample size; the number of valid
response to the question) for each variable. “Statistically significant” means that the result
is statistically supported and is no coincidence. The notes of “p < 0.01,” “p < 0.05,” and “p< 0.1” mean that the results are statistically significant at the 1% level, 5% level, and 10%
26

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to the whole population of the Japanese bar where the mean age isapproximately 4827 and 18.42% are female,28 divorce lawyers are slightly
younger and have a relatively higher percentage of females.
With regard to divorce lawyers’ divorce and family-related
experiences in their private lives (the factors I focus on in the analyses ofPart III), 66.17% of the divorce lawyers are currently married; 48.26% haveat least one child; 7.46% have experienced their own divorce in the past;
12.94% have experienced their parents’ divorce in the past. A survey by the
JFBA in 2010 implies that only 2.55% of Japanese lawyers (in all practiceareas) have an experience of divorce.29 Therefore, the percentage of divorce
experiencers seems higher among divorce lawyers than the lawyers in otherpractice areas.
B.

Professional Characteristics and Practices
1.

Basic Professional Characteristics

The divorce lawyers’ mean years of practice is 9.34 years (SD = 8.02,
range = 1–42). Their practice locations are both in cities (22.73% in Tokyoand 59.09% in other cities) and in provinces (18.18%). 30 The mean
proportion of divorce cases in their workloads is 27.89% (SD = 21.25, range= 0–98).31 This result suggests that the majority of divorce lawyers practicecases in other areas than divorce as well. At the same time, it suggests theexistence of divorce lawyers who make their livelihood almost solely fromdivorce cases—4.48% of divorce lawyers allocate 80% or more theirworkloads for divorce cases, and the maximum ratio answered is 98%.
level, respectively. The levels of statistical significance suggest the strength of the evidence
in the following order p < 0.01 (very strong), p < 0.05 (strong), p < 0.1 (weak), to reject
the null hypothesis (i.e., there is no influence of the variable) and to support the result.
See JFBA, BENGOSHI HAKUSHO 2016 at 31 for the official comprehensive dataof lawyer population by age groups as of Mar. 31, 2016. I substituted each age group (e.g.,
30–39) by its intermediate value (e.g., 35) to make a rough estimate of their mean age(47.81).
27

Female lawyers at the Japanese bar are 6,896 out of 37,680 as of March 31,
2016. See JFBA, supra note 27, at 30 for the official comprehensive data by the JFBA.
American readers may feel that the ratio of female is extraordinarily low, but the ratio has
been gradually increasing—it was 12.98% in 2006 and 6.92% in 1996. See id. See
generally Ishida, infra note 94 for the details of the situations of Japanese female lawyers.
28

40 out of 1568 respondents. See infra App. B (particularly, infra note 138) for
the details of the JFBA survey in 2010.
29

30

See App. A for the precise definitions of the location categories.

The exact question is the proportion of divorce cases in a lawyers’ entire work
based on his or her workload in the previous one year. Thus, the minimum answer of “0”implies that the lawyer (incidentally) had no chance to engage in a divorce case in theprevious year, but it does not mean he or she has never practiced divorce cases before.
31

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Additional specialties popular among divorce lawyers are traffic
accidents (57.00%), inheritances (56.50%), personal debt affairs (46.00%),
criminal cases (41.00%), and labor (33.50%). 32 These areas, including
divorce, have in common that their client is usually an individual person
and that lawyers often need to deal with human emotions. But, interestingly
at the same time, some divorce lawyers have specialties in corporate clients
as well: corporate bankruptcies (17.50%) and general corporate affairs(19.50%).
About one-fourth (24.88%) of divorce lawyers engage in some kindsof pro bono activities concerning children’s rights, and one-eighth (12.44%)
engage in those activities concerning women’s rights or sex equality.
2.

Female Clients

One unique feature of divorce cases in Japan is the high proportionof female clients compared to other practice areas, where male clients are
generally the majority.33 The survey data quantitatively confirms this fact. I
actually find that divorce lawyers have more female clients than male clientsin divorce cases; the proportion of female clients 34 is 59.72% on average.
Considering that the two parties in divorce cases are usually one male andone female,35 the result indicates wives are more inclined to hire lawyers
for their divorce disputes than husbands.
Given the high proportion of female clients in the industry, obtaining
and dealing with female clients would be an important task for divorce
lawyers. Interestingly, the proportion of female clients varies widely amonglawyers (SD = 21.78%, range = 0%–100%). By performing a regression
analysis of the proportions of female clients on the divorce lawyers’
characteristics, I find two factors that affect the proportion of female clientsin divorce lawyers’ practices: gender and age. 36 As noted in Section I.A, it
Taking up areas in which more than 30% of divorce lawyers have a specialty.
See infra App. A for the full list of 15 items.
32

33
There has been no empirical data that specifically cover the gender distributionof lawyers’ clients. Cf. Yuriko Kaminaga, Minji sosho to josei (1): sosho tojisha josei [Civil
Litigations and Females (1): Female Litigants], in SAIBAN KEIKEN TO SOSHO KODO
[LITIGATION EXPERIENCES AND BEHAVIORS] 45–67 (Daniel H. Foote & Shozo Ota eds.,
2010) (using survey data of the civil litigants in Japan to describe that the majority oflitigants are male).

To be precise, the proportion of female clients in divorce conciliation cases. See
App. A for the detailed definition.
34

35

Same-sex marriages are not legally admitted as marriage in Japan at the moment.

I omit to report the full results of the regression analysis, but as control or
independent variables in the regression model, I included marriage, child, own divorce,parents’ divorce, age, gender, years of practice, proportion of divorce cases, and locationof firm. The impacts of the variables other than gender and age are not statisticallysignificant.
36

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is basically the clients who choose lawyers, not vice versa, in divorce cases.
Thus, the proportion of female clients indicates the lawyer’s popularity
among female clients. In other words, the determinants of divorce lawyers’
proportion of female clients are the determinants of female clients’ choicesof lawyers.
First, female lawyers have more female clients. On average, theproportion of female clients is 70.79% (SD = 18.87%) for female lawyers
while it is 57.02% (SD = 21.48%) for male lawyers. Even when other factors
are held equal in the regression analysis, female lawyers have 10.68% more
female clients than male lawyers (p < 0.01). Female lawyers at theinterviews shared a common perception that some female clients haveconcrete preferences for female lawyers although the lawyers are not sureof the reasons. 37 Another survey of clients is probably needed tocomprehensively reveal the reasons why female clients prefer female
lawyers. But, it may be explained by the characteristic of the legal
profession that clients often trust lawyers who can empathize with theclients’ position 38 —clients may have a tendency to prefer lawyers whoshare clients’ characteristics. 39 Alternatively, it may be explained by theissue of communication—female clients may feel hesitant to talk about theirprivate issues to male lawyers. For example, one male lawyer clearlymentioned his hesitance to ask private questions to female clients:
I have to ask about [the client’s] sexual relationship issues. It’s
puzzling for me to ask those issues to young ladies. [...] I feelawkward when asking questions to 25, 26 [years old] girls like“when did you have sex last time?”40
Second, older lawyers have more female clients. When other factors
are held equal, one-year [ten-year] increase of lawyer’s age increases the
proportion of female clients by 0.71% [7.1%] (p < 0.01). Again, anothersurvey of clients is needed in the future to reveal the reasons, but theinterviews with lawyers suggest one possible reason: female clients may
feel that older lawyers are easier to communicate with. The same malelawyer above shared that the puzzle between the male lawyer and the female
client does not seem to happen when his boss—an elder lawyer—talks tofemale clients:

37

See interviews with lawyers C, E, and G.

38

See infra note 89.

39

See JOHN P. HEINZ & EDWARD O. LAUMANN, CHICAGO LAWYERS 139 (rev. ed.

40

Interview with lawyer B.

1994).

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When I had a boss in the previous law firm [before I launched myown firm], he was an old man. He asks clients directly and listenswith a straight face, which seems totally fine. 41
Also, another senior male lawyer, 80% of whose clients are female,mentioned that his style of communication might be one reason why female
clients choose him. His story implies that female clients may feel more
comfortable to burst their emotions in front of older lawyers, who are
personally more matured:
It may be totally irrelevant to lawyers’ professional things, but I
think, after all, it’s necessary to let clients explode their emotions
first. Especially, in cases of female clients, you know, they become
mentally unstable. So, I first let them cry hard [in a meeting at myoffice]. [...] But, once they are refreshed and prepared [after crying]females are mentally stronger [than males].42
3.

Incomes

The annual income of divorce lawyers is about 10 million JapaneseYen (“JPY”) on average (mean = 10.12, SD = 5.19),43 which is roughly
equivalent to USD 100 thousand. 44 Incomes of divorce lawyers are
relatively modest compared to the other practice areas. Table 2 compares
incomes of divorce lawyers from the results of the survey and incomes ofwhole lawyers in all practice areas from the survey by the JFBA in 2010.45
Incomes of entire lawyers’ are almost evenly distributed to the fivecategories from less than JPY 5 million to 20 million and over. On the other
hand, incomes of most (75.12%) divorce lawyers fall within the range of
JPY 5 million to 15 million. Less than one in ten (8.12%) divorce lawyers
earn JPY 20 million or more. Pearson’s χ2 test confirms the difference
between the two groups (p < 0.01).46

41

Interview with lawyer B.

42Interview with lawyer K.

Respondents self-reported their annual incomes from eight categories(intervals). To convert the categories into a continuous variable, each category is
substituted by its intermediate value (e.g., the category of “from JPY 5 million below 7
million” is substituted by the value of “JPY 6 million”).
43

Roughly, JPY 100 ≈ USD 1. The precise currency rate as of Aug. 1, 2018 is
JPY 112 = USD 1.
44

45

See infra App. B for the details of the JFBA survey in 2010.

46

χ2(4) = 56.75.

Saito13

TABLE 2: COMPARISON OF INCOMES WITH LAWYERSIN ALL PRACTICE AREAS
5 million ≤ 10 million ≤ 15 million ≤20 million ≤< 10 million < 15 million < 20 million
Divorce Lawyers
10.15%
50.25%
24.87%
6.60%
8.12%
Lawyers in All Areas 20.87%
29.41%
17.16%
12.33%
20.23%
Notes: Incomes of divorce lawyers and lawyers in all practice areas respectively. Data ofdivorce lawyers is from the present study (in 2017, N = 197; combining the original eightintervals into the five categories for the purpose of the visibility of the comparison) and thatof entire lawyers is from the JFBA survey (in 2010, N = 1241).
(JPY) < 5 million

4.

Fees

In Japan, divorce lawyers charge clients on a per-project basis,
instead of an hourly basis. The most common fee system for divorce cases
includes three types of fees: (i) a retaining fee, (ii) an overall contingency
fee, and (iii) an economic-benefits-based contingency fee.
Most lawyers request a retaining fee at the beginning of the divorce
cases. Most (93.10%) of the divorce lawyers answered they normally takea retaining fee in their divorce cases. The amount differs by lawyer and bycase, but the amount for divorce conciliation or litigation cases is typicallyaround JPY 200–300 thousand. 47 Then, after the case is closed, mostlawyers request an overall contingency fee if they achieved the client’s main
goal (e.g., divorce with child custody). Four-fifth (80.79%) of divorce
lawyers answered their default fee system for divorce cases includes thiskind of overall contingency fee. Again, the amount differs by lawyer and bycase, but it is usually the similar amount as the retaining fee (i.e., JPY 200–
300 thousand).48
How frequently do these divorce lawyers actually request an overall
contingency fee? On average, they end up requesting an overall contingency
fee to clients in slightly more than half (54.09%, SD = 32.63) of theirconciliation cases.49 On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the rest
(about one-fifth (19.21%)) of the divorce lawyers fail to adopt the system
The interviewees had a common perception that this amount is the typical pricein the industry. See also JFBA, ANKETO KEKKA NI MOTOZUKU SHIMIN NO TAME NO
BENGOSHI HOSHU NO MEYASU [GUIDE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC ABOUT LAWYERS’ FEES:
BASED
ON
THE
RESULTSOFSURVEY]
19–20(2009),
https://www.nichibenren.or.jp/library/ja/attorneys_fee/data/meyasu.pdf.
47

48

A common perception among the interviewees. See also JFBA, supra note 47.

The survey asked the number of conciliation cases in which the respondents
actually charged clients the overall contingency fees at the end of the cases in the past ten
years. Then, it was divided by the total number of conciliation cases they handled in thepast ten years. Four respondents were dropped from the sample because they answered ahigher number for conciliations with an overall contingency fee than the total number ofdivorce conciliations they handled in the past 10 years.
49

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of an overall contingency fee. Perhaps, these lawyers collect fees more
flexibly by increasing a retaining fee or an economic-benefits-based
contingency fee.
In addition to an overall contingency fee, divorce lawyers usually
request an economic-benefits-based contingency fee, of which amount istypically around 10% of the “economic benefits” brought to the clients
through the lawyers’ works (e.g., money gained from property divisions or
as compensations). 50 For instance, in the case of 10%, lawyers would
request JPY 300 thousand if their clients gained compensation money of
JPY 3 million. Most (92.61%) of the divorce lawyers contain this kind of
benefits-based contingency fee in their default fee system for divorce cases.
There is a practical issue over whether or not to include the amountof child support into the client’s economic benefits. It may be excessive toinclude the amount of the entire child support period in the calculation (e.g.,
all of 15 years until a five-year-old child reaches 20) because obligors ofchild support often cease to make the payment after certain periods. Besides,
the legal recipient of child support is technically the child and not the parent(i.e., the client)—the client only receives it as the legal representative of thechild although the client gains a de facto benefit from child support.
Practices differ by lawyer, but I find there are two major practices. 51
One popular approach is to not include child support at all (37.43%). 52
Another—slightly more popular—approach is to include the amount ofchild support for up to two years (42.78%),53 which is the same standard asa standard adopted by the Japan Legal Support Center (ho terasu), a public
institution that provides financial loan supports for clients. If a client uses
this public loan support, the legal fee from the client must follow their
institutional standard regardless of the lawyer’s individual fee system. It
seems many lawyers adopted this public standard in their own practices aswell.
A few interviewees mentioned the rationale for their own
approaches. For example, one lawyer stated his policy of not including childSee, e.g., NIHON SHIHO SHIEN SENTA, NIHON SHIHO SHIEN SENTA GYOMUHOHOSHO [THE J APAN LEGAL SUPPORT CENTER’S STATEMENT OF OPERATIONPROCEDURES]88(2018),
https://www.houterasu.or.jp/houterasu_gaiyou/kouhyou_jikou/sienhou/index.files/100862
288.pdf (adopting the institutional standard of 10% for clients who use the public loan
support from this institution).
50

The survey offered four options: (a) include entire period (1.07%), (b) include
two years (42.78%), (c) not at all include (37.43%), and (d) others (18.72%). The
approaches specifically stated by the respondents who chose (d) others were such as “caseby case,” “include three years,” and “include five years.”
51

52

See id.

53

See id.

Saito15

support at all. He learned from his former boss that child support must be
spent on children’s living expenses and not for lawyers:
My boss was like, “It’s fine. That [i.e., child support] is for your kids’
meal.” He was always like that and never took fees from childsupport.54
Another lawyer mentioned fairness as the rationale for adopting thetwo-year standard:
The amount of the entire period is too much. But, I think it is rather
unfair for clients if the fee [for cases with child support] is exactly
the same as for cases without any child support. [...] The amountthat is not a real burden [for clients] would be probably based on
two years.55
However, most of the lawyers interviewed failed to clarify therationale for their own approaches—it seems most divorce lawyers do nothave any strong reasons for choosing their own approaches. Probably, theirchoices are (maybe even unconsciously) made in an economically rational
way in accordance with the reality of their practices.56
5.

Disputing Behaviors

In Japan, lawyers can be involved in three different stages of divorce
disputes: negotiations, conciliations, and litigations. Japan has a uniquesystem of divorce. Unlike many other countries including the U.S., a
divorce decree from a court is not required for divorce in Japan. 57 As longas couples do not have any trouble in establishing the divorcing conditions,they can simply submit a divorce notice at the city hall to register theirdivorce (divorce by mutual agreement (kyogi rikon)). When the couples
have a trouble in setting the divorcing conditions, divorce disputes are
typically developed from divorce negotiations to divorce conciliations(rikon chotei), and further to divorce litigations (rikon sosho). Divorce
conciliation is a mediation-like procedure at family court. The procedure is
54

Interview with lawyer B.

55

Interview with lawyer G.

See also infra Section III.D (hypothesizing that lawyers who are more diligent
and successful in child support disputes would be more inclined to adopt the two-year fee
standard).
56

See, e.g., Hiroharu Saito, Bargaining in the Shadow of Children’s Voices inDivorce Custody Disputes: Comparative Analysis of Japan and the U.S., 17 CARDOZO J.
CONFLICT RESOL. 937 (2016) for a more detailed comparison of divorce systems in Japanand the U.S.
57

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handled by two part-time conciliators supervised by one family court judge.
But, unlike pure mediation, conciliators often make specific settlement
suggestions as well as they facilitate conversations between the parties.
Divorce conciliation is a prerequisite for divorce litigation (so-called
the principle of conciliation first); thus, parties are not allowed to pursue a
divorce litigation without first bringing the case to conciliation.58 Only if
the parties could not settle through conciliation, can the case go to litigation
to seek court’s adjudication. 216,798 couples divorced in Japan in 2016. 59
Among them, most (188,960 (87.16%)) of the couples divorced by mutual
agreements outside the court (kyogi rikon).60 One in ten (21,651 (9.99%))
couples were settled at conciliations (rikon chotei).61 Only 5,640 (2.60%)
divorces were litigated (rikon sosho); resulting in about a half of thelitigated cases (3,474 (1.60%)) were settled and another half (2,166(1.00%)) were resolved by court’s adjudications.62
It has been said, among the three stages, conciliations are the divorce
lawyers’ central jobs in general in Japan. 63 The survey data quantitatively
confirms this fact. Table 3 presents the summary statistics of the number ofcases per year by type.
TABLE 3: NUMBER OF CASES PER YEAR BY TYPE
Case Type
Mean
SD
Range
N
Divorce negotiations
3.45
6.45
0.00–44.00
198
Divorce conciliations
5.39
5.66
0.20–31.25
199—Conciliations between couples
with minor children
3.71
4.45
0.00–29.00
199—Conciliations including
custody disputes
1.97
2.72
0.00–20.00
196
Divorce litigations
1.75
2.56
0.00–15.00
199
Notes: The number of cases per year by case type. The survey asked respondents thenumber of each case type in the past ten years, which was divided by ten (forrespondents with ten or more years of practice) or by the years of practice (forrespondents with less than ten years of practice). The numbers of negotiations,
conciliations, and litigations are counted cumulatively (i.e., when a respondent
handled all of the three stages for one case for the same client, it counts as one
negotiation, one conciliation, and one litigation).

58

See generally Saito, supra note 57, at 944.

See Kosei rodo sho [Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, & Welfare], Jinko
dotai chosa 2016 [Official Demographic Report for 2016] (Sep. 15, 2017),
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/81-1.html.
59

60

See id.

61

See id.

62

See id.

63This is a common perception among the interviewees.

Saito17

Divorce lawyers take about five (5.39) divorce conciliation cases on
average per year. Among those, about four (3.71) conciliation cases on
average are disputes between couples with minor children; about two (1.97)
conciliation cases on average include a dispute over post-divorce custodyof the children.64
The divorce lawyers’ take about three (3.45) divorce negotiation
cases on average per year. The ratio of divorce lawyers’ negotiation cases
to conciliation cases is about 67.84% on average—a divorce lawyer does
negotiations prior to conciliations in roughly two third of his or her divorce
cases on average. At the same time, variance of the negotiation ratio amonglawyers is large (SD = 71.18%, range = 0%–400%), which means lawyers’
preferences regarding whether or not to take negotiation cases, greatly differ
by lawyer. 65 Fourteen respondents answered that they have never taken
negotiation cases in the past ten years (i.e., 0%) while the highest respondent
takes four times more negotiations than conciliations (i.e., 400%).
According to the interviews, some lawyers certainly avoid engaging
in negotiations prior to conciliations. They think the lawyers’ involvements
in negotiations without facilitations from conciliators are inefficient. They
take cases only from the stage of conciliations or they encourage clients toimmediately file a motion of conciliations without first making an attempt
to settle the cases through negotiations outside the court. For example, one
lawyer said:
I usually don’t [take cases from the negotiation stage]. I haveexperienced one [negotiation] case before, but then, I thought I
shouldn’t do it anymore. [...] Non-mandatory negotiations always
drag on and end up on the back-burner in our jobs. [...] If the casegoes to conciliation, hearing dates are set and conciliators instructwhat the parties to decide by the subsequent hearing dates. In termsof handling my jobs promptly, I thought it is better to have thecourt’s involvement.66
On the other hand, there are also lawyers who actively engage indivorce negotiations. Another lawyer described his positive experiences ofnegotiation cases. He does negotiations in almost half of his cases:
I first offer general figures [for divorce] and hear the counterparty’s
opinion. In that sense, divorce negotiations are not so different fromTo be precise, the number of cases that had disagreements on post-divorce childcustody between the parties at the first hearing date of the conciliations.
64

Nevertheless, not only the lawyers’ personal preferences but also the requests
from the clients and the characteristics of the cases would also influence the lawyers’
strategies for pre-conciliation negotiations.
65

66

Interview with lawyer E.

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other civil case negotiations. [...] There are many [cases that settle
through negotiations]. [...] Couples [around this area] are relatively
wealthy and young. So, they don’t fight much about money. A
number of couples decide to conclude their divorce negotiations at
a certain point.67
Then, turning to litigations, the average number of divorce litigation
cases one divorce lawyer takes per year is about two (1.75). The ratio of
each divorce lawyer’s litigation cases to conciliation cases is 32.15% on
average—a divorce lawyer does litigations in roughly one third of theirdivorce cases on average. At the same time, the variance of the ratio is large(SD = 28.39%, range = 0%–225%) among the divorce lawyers. Actually,
the lowest one-fifth (N = 36) of the lawyers have the litigation ratio of only
10% (and less), while the highest one-fifth (N = 44) group have the ratio of50% (and more). This large variance suggests that the divorce lawyers’
strategic preferences regarding conciliations and litigations vary fromlawyer to lawyer—from which stage they take cases and how they proceedwith their cases after being retained. Some lawyers have definite
preferences to avoid conciliation cases—they often take cases only from
litigations.
Furthermore, there are variations among lawyers in terms of thetiming to abandon conciliations to move to litigations. Conciliation is aprerequisite for litigation. Divorcing parties are allowed to pursue alitigation to seek a court’s adjudication only if the parties fail to settle
through the conciliation. However, in reality, some lawyers often abandon
conciliations at the first hearing date to start litigations right away. Actually,
as described in Section II.B.4 above, the major fee system for divorce
lawyers in Japan is not an hourly charge—it is a fixed fee and contingency.
Consequently, some divorce lawyers want to shorten the total amount oftime required for each case. Conciliations usually take much longer binding
hours at court than litigations for lawyers. Total length of one conciliation
hearing is usually 2–3 hours (often referred to by lawyers as “half a day”68)
while one litigation hearing typically takes 5–20 minutes.69 Conciliation isin a caucus style, where conciliators hear from each party for 20–40 minutes
alternately. During the counterparty’s turn to talk to conciliators, the lawyer
also has to wait with his or her client in a communal waiting room. For
67

Interview with lawyer J.

See, e.g., interview with lawyer L (“[C]onciliations really take time. It [onehearing date] takes half a day for sure”).
68

Civil litigations in Japan, including divorce litigations, are heavily paper-based
procedures. Thus, the major purposes of litigation hearings (unless they do examinationsof witnesses) are just to exchange briefs between the parties and to have a shortconversation about the possibility of settlement. Additionally, there are no U.S.-like
discovery procedures in Japan.
69

Saito19

example, in the interview, one lawyer confessed his honest feeling of
reluctance to take divorce conciliations:
There are a lot of lawyers who don’t like to take [divorce cases].
They take time and they are unprofitable. I do them with reluctance.
[...] I don’t want to consume too much time in conciliations. It isalso tiring to spend time with clients [during the wait time at court].
[...] So, I don’t want to take cases from conciliations if possible. [...]
I usually say [to the clients] “if you couldn’t settle throughconciliations, please come again,” and then make some advice
about conciliations. There are also many cases where I instructclients to first do and abandon conciliations before coming to me or
I take from the conciliation in order to move to litigation. [...] My
stance, which is actually not for clients but for myself, [...] is toprefer litigations at the pace of one hearing per month.70
In contrast, other divorce lawyers do prefer to take conciliation cases.
One lawyer highlighted the importance for clients to have a lawyer inconciliations:
A number of websites [information sites for divorcing people] now
explain that it is possible to do conciliations by themselves [withouta lawyer], but I think these [websites] are awful. In conciliations,
you are always required to make instant decisions there and then.
Conciliations are actually more difficult. You can simply escape bysaying “I will take it back and consider [by the next hearing date]”in litigations, but it doesn’t work so in conciliations.71
III. SUCCESSFUL DIVORCE LAWYERS
Part II presented the inter-person disparities of divorce lawyers’
practices. Part III addresses the determinants of those Japanese divorce
lawyers’ practices and behaviors. In particular, Part III focuses on the impact
of divorce- or family-related experiences in divorce lawyers’ private life on
their practices. In order to analyze the impact of private experiences on
divorce lawyers’ practices, I observe the effects of their private divorce- andfamily-related experiences (i.e., independent variables) while controlling
for the effects of basic demographic factors and professional factors (i.e.,
control variables). Furthermore, I perform regression analyses to uncover
the determinants of divorce lawyers’ incomes, fees, and disputing behaviors,
respectively.

70

Interview with lawyer F.

71

Interview with lawyer I.

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In Section III.A, I first describe the background of the analyses.
After reviewing the literature on the legal professionals’ decision making, I
generate the hypothesis to be tested in the analyses. In Section III.B, I
overview the variables used in the analyses. By reviewing the literature on
lawyers’ legal careers, I select control variables that are used in the analyses.
In Section III.C–III.E, I present the results of the regression analyses ofincomes, fees, and disputing behaviors.
A. Hypothesis Generation
1.

Literature on Legal Professionals’ Decision Making

The present study is inspired by studies around the world on thelegal professionals’ decision-making—their decision-making can beaffected by a wide variety of factors extraneous to the merits of cases.
First, studies have addressed judges’ decision-making with aparticular focus on the intra-person disparities due to the systematic
cognitive biases. The same judge can render different decisions under
different cognitive circumstances. Guthrie and colleagues conductedscenario experiments with federal magistrate judges in the U.S. and foundthat all of the five common cognitive biases (i.e., anchoring, framing,
hindsight, representativeness, and egocentric biases) affect judges’
decision-making. 72 Another experimental study with German judges andprosecutors also confirmed the influences of anchoring bias on judges’
decision-making. 73 Rachlinski and colleagues examined another type ofcognitive bias—judges’ attention on evidence. Their scenario experimentswith U.S. judges found that judges’ attention on evidence is influenced by
the contexts in which judges review the evidence and by the orders and theforms of evidence presented (i.e., contrast effect). 74 A study by Shai
Danziger and colleagues, using field data of Israeli judges’ parole decisions,found that the rates of parole approval drop gradually as time advances after
judges’ each meal break. 75 They suggested the possibility of psychologicaleffects in sequential decision-making; repeated rulings may increase judges’
tendency to favor the status quo. 76
72

See Chris Guthrie et al., Inside the Judicial Mind, 86 CORNELL L. REV. 777(2001).
73
See Birte Englich et al., Playing Dice With Criminal Sentences: The Influenceof Irrelevant Anchors on Experts’ Judicial Decision Making, 32 PERS. & SOC. PSYCHOL.
BULL. 188 (2006).
74
See Jeffrey J. Rachlinski et al., Altering Attention in Adjudication, 60 UCLA L.
REV. 1586 (2013).

See Shai Danziger et al., Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions, 108 PROC.
NAT’L ACAD. SCI. U.S. 6889 (2011).
75

But see Keren Weinshall-Margel & John Shapard, Overlooked Factors in the
Analysis of Parole Decisions, 108 PROC. NAT’L ACAD. SCI. U.S. E833 (2011) (criticizing76

Saito21

Second, there have been studies addressing intra-person disparitiesof lawyers’ decision-making, albeit fewer compared to the studies of judges.
Andrew J. Wistrich and Rachlinski tackled the question why lawyers’
settlements often delay and do not happen until the eve of trial. 77 Their
scenario experiments with U.S. lawyers found that lawyers are affected by
the four cognitive biases relevant to the delay of decision-making (i.e.,framing, 78 confirmation, nonconsequentialist reasoning, and sunk-cost
fallacy biases). Another study of UK lawyers by Ian K. Belton andcolleagues also confirmed lawyers’ settlement decisions are significantly
affected by the gain-loss framing although lawyers are less susceptible than
non-lawyer professionals (e.g., civil servants, bankers, and doctors). 79 In
brief, studies have demonstrated that a variety of cognitive biases caninfluence lawyers’ decision-making.
Lastly, studies using field data of criminal sentencing have provided
empirical evidence for the existence of judges’ inter-person disparities indecision-making. Further, one of the influential factors preceding studies
have clearly spotted is judges’ political ideologies. The criminal sentencing
practice in the U.S. greatly changed after United States v. Booker,80 whichchanged the treatment of U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines frommandatory minimums to advisory. A study of Ryan W. Scott used judgespecific sentencing data from the District of Massachusetts to demonstrate
a concrete increase in inter-person disparities of judges’ sentencing afterBooker.81 A study of Crystal S. Yang created a more comprehensive datasetthat the order of cases and the timing of judges’ breaks may not have been random—otherfactors attributable to the order of cases or the timing of breaks may have caused the
downward trend in parole approval) for the weakness of the study of Shai Danziger et al.,supra note 75. See also Shai Danziger et al., Reply to Weinshall-Margel and Shapard:
Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions Persist, 108 PROC. NAT’L ACAD. SCI. U.S. E834
(2011) for the reply to the criticism above.
See Andrew J. Wistrich & Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, How Lawyers' Intuitions
Prolong Litigation, 86 S. CAL. L. REV. 571 (2013).
77

But see Russell Korobkin & Chris Guthrie, Psychology, Economics, andSettlement: A New Look at the Role of the Lawyer, 76 TEX. L. REV. 77 (1997) for theframing bias. The scenario experiments of Korobkin and Guthrie with lawyers in San
Francisco found no significant effects of the gain-loss framing in contrast to the study of
Wistrich and Rachlinski. In both of the studies, participant lawyers were randomly assigned
to either one of the gain-frame or the loss-frame scenarios, where the participants played
the role of lawyers advising the client. A major difference of the scenarios was thatparticipants played the role of a plaintiff’s counsel in both of the gain-frame and the lossframe in Korobkin and Guthrie while the participants played a plaintiff’s counsel in thegain-frame and a defendant’s counsel in the loss-frame in Wistrich and Rachlinski.
78

79
See Ian K. Belton et al., Lawyer and Nonlawyer Susceptibility to Framing
Effects in Out-of-Court Civil Litigation Settlement, 11 J. EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD. 578(2014).
80

United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005).

81

See Ryan W. Scott, Inter-Judge Sentencing Disparity After “Booker”: A First

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covering all ninety-four district courts around the U.S. to examine theimpact of Booker.82 She found, after Booker, that the inter-person disparities
of overall judges’ sentencing have doubled and that the tendencies of
Democratic-appointed judges and female judges to give shorter sentences
than Republican-appointed judges and male judges, respectively, weremagnified.83 Furthermore, studies before Booker (i.e., the studies with data
during the period when the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines weremandatory minimums) have already found influences of judges’ political
ideology: Democratic-appointed judges tend to be more lenient thanRepublican-appointed judges.84
In sum, the preceding studies on the legal professionals’ decisionmaking have revealed the effects of various factors extraneous to the meritsof cases: judges’ and lawyers’ intra-person disparities due to systematic
cognitive biases; and the existence of judges’ inter-person disparities andparticularly, the influences of judges’ political ideologies on their decisionmaking.
2.

Hypothesis

The claim of an American legal realist, Jerome Frank, has often been
caricatured as even “what the judge had for breakfast” could affect the legal
professional’s decisions on the day. 85 This trope seems to have motivatedmany empirical studies of intra-person disparities among the legal
professionals. 86 However, this trope is actually not a good summary ofLook, 63 STAN. L. REV. 1 (2010).
82
See Crystal S. Yang, Have Interjudge Sentencing Disparities Increased in an
Advisory Guidelines Regime? Evidence From Booker, 89 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1268 (2014).
83

See id. at 1316.

See Max M. Schanzenbach & Emerson H. Tiller, Strategic Judging Under the
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: Positive Political Theory and Evidence, 23 J. L. ECON. & ORG.
24 (2007) (using district level variation in the characteristics of judges and finding that
sentences in the district courts with more Democratic-appointed judges are shorter forstreet crimes (violent, theft, and drug crimes) than in the district courts consisted of a higher
fraction of Republican appointees); Max M. Schanzenbach & Emerson H. Tiller, Reviewing
the Sentencing Guidelines: Judicial Politics, Empirical Evidence, and Reform, 75 U. CHI.
L. REV. 715 (2008) (using judge-specific sentencing data of district courts and finding that
Democratic-appointed judges are more likely to give a downward departure from theFederal Sentencing Guidelines when the appellate circuit court has the majority of
Democratic-appointees); Joshua B. Fischman & Max M. Schanzenbach, Do Standards ofReview Matter? The Case of Federal Criminal Sentencing, 40 J. LEGAL STUD. 405 (2011)(suggesting that sentences in the district courts with more Democratic-appointed judges are
more lenient than in courts with more Republican-appointed judges and the difference
between the two groups is larger when appellate review is deferential, compared to whenreview is strict).
84

85

See FREDERICK SCHAUER, THINKING LIKE A LAWYER 129 (2009).

86

See, e.g., Danziger et al., infra note 75, at 6889 (explicitly mentioning that they

Saito23Frank’s entire claim. 87 Frank did not narrowly focus on intra-person
disparities caused by trivial factors. He rather emphasized, “uniquely
individual factors [depending often on peculiarly individual traits of thepersons] often are more important causes of judgments than anything which
could be described as political, economic, or moral biases.” 88 He highly
valued the impacts of personal attributes of the individual legal
professionals. Much is still unknown about the determinants of inter-person
disparities of the legal professionals’ behaviors. But considering that thepreceding studies of judicial decision-making have suggested the possibilityof effects of various psychological factors, it would be reasonable togenerate the following hypothesis:
Generalized Hypothesis: Practices of lawyers can be affected bytheir emotional private experiences in the past, which are relevantto the topic of the cases.
For example, imagine yourself getting almost killed by medical
malpractice, being mistakenly arrested, or getting divorced with your oncebeloved partner. These serious and emotional life events may change yourprofessional behaviors as a lawyer in medical cases, criminal cases, or
divorce cases. In light of your firsthand experience, you perhaps have morepassion in those cases, you can perhaps understand clients’ situations more
fully, and you can perhaps empathize with the clients’ feelings more deeply.
Consequently, you perhaps become a more diligent and better lawyer inthose practice areas. Lawyers’ works are heavily dependent on
conversations with clients, and clients often seek a trust in their lawyers
beyond technical competency. 89 Therefore, your ability to empathize withclients would be a great advantage in your works.
Divorce lawyers are probably the best subjects to analyze this
Generalized Hypothesis because the private experience of divorce is morecommon among lawyers, compared to other comparable emotional events
such as medical malpractice and mistaken arrest. Divorce lawyers’ stories
at the interviews indeed imply a causal relationship between their own
divorce experiences and their practices. One male lawyer said he cantested this trope).
87

See SCHAUER, supra note 85, at 129.

88

JEROME FRANK, LAW & THE MODERN MIND 114 (1930).

This characteristic of legal profession becomes clearer when it is compared withthe medical profession. In the medical profession, the relationships between doctors andpatients are routinized, and the doctors’ technical competency is the most important factor
for the patients. On the other hand, in the legal profession, clients often require lawyers
who can empathize with the clients’ positions. See HEINZ & LAUMANN, supra note 39, at138–39.
89

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particularly understand well the feelings of husbands who were left behindby their wives and children, based on his own experience of such a situation:
I know the feeling at the time a husband had children taken away.
And, I also know the changes of the feeling after a while. [...] In the
beginning, you are filled with a sense of loss and feel like “I would
like to take the children back by all means!” But after a while, you
gradually feel like “OK, maybe I should leave them alone...” 90
He also said his firsthand knowledge certainly helps him develop
strategies for female clients in custody disputes as well as for male clients:
I can guess the feeling of the man, the counterparty. It’s like, forexample, “he must be quite furious now because it is still at the
beginning, but he will probably settle down in the near future.”91
Another lawyer said he began to practice divorce cases because of
his own experience, and he expressed strong emotion toward divorce cases:
I myself have experienced a divorce litigation, and I have a verystrong feeling that the court for domestic relation issues in Japan isquite unreasonable. So, partly because of that experience, I was
hoping to do [divorce cases when I opened my own law firm]. 92
Based on his personal experience, he also has a policy that he nevertakes cases for clients to claim compensations for counterparties’ infidelity.
In another respect, one married lawyer, who is particularly diligent incustody and visitation disputes, mentioned about the influence of his own
young daughter:I recently do a lot of child custody disputes, and I’m often frustrated.
To be honest, I myself have a young child, and I know how muchparents’ love their children. But, the counterparties often refuse myclients to see their children at all [...]; the counterparties even refuse
to notify the whereabouts of the children. [...] So, I sometimes get
into quite a quarrel with the counterparties’ attorneys.93
Therefore, applying the Generalized Hypothesis, I set out below a
specific hypothesis for divorce lawyers:
90

Interview with lawyer L.

91

Interview with lawyer L.

92

Interview with lawyer H.

93

Interview with lawyer A.

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Hypothesis: Divorce lawyers’ divorce- or family-related
experiences in private life facilitate them to be better divorce
lawyers who are more diligent and more successful in divorce casepractices.
I analyze the influences of divorce lawyers’ divorce- or familyrelated experiences in the three important topics in divorce case practices to
examine this hypothesis. Quantitative analyses are suitable and essential for
testing this kind of Hypothesis—qualitative analyses (e.g., interviews)
would not be able to uncover subconscious effects of lawyers’ private
experiences. Controlling for other relevant factors (i.e., basic demographics
and professional circumstances), I assess the impacts of divorce lawyers’
private experiences on their incomes, fees, and disputing behaviors.
B. Selection of Variables
For independent variables to be examined—divorce lawyers’ private
divorce- and family-related experiences—I use four variables: currently
married; having a child; an experience of own divorce in the past; and an
experience of parents’ divorce in the past. Then, for control variables, it isessential to control major factors that may have impacts on lawyers’ daily
practices. For this purpose, I begin with reviewing the preceding studies thathave examined the determinants of lawyers’ legal careers. Although thosestudies have left the determinants of lawyers’ daily practices and behaviors
unexplored, their findings help identify factors that might somehow
influence lawyers’ practices.
Please note that the summary statistics and the detailed definition of
the variables I use in the analyses are all listed in Appendix A. Also, eachvariable was already described in Part II.
1.

Literature on Lawyers’ Legal Careers

I review studies of lawyers’ legal careers in North America inaddition to those in Japan because there have been numerous studies inNorth America. Both in Japan and North America, studies have found that(i) lawyers’ incomes are influenced by their legal careers and working
environments, and that (ii) their legal careers and working environments are
predictable by their legal education. Major recent studies and their findings
can be summarized as follows.
In Japan, there were two recent projects that studied lawyers’ legal
careers.94 A project led by Iwao Sato and Ryo Hamano analyzed the most
Unfortunately, most of their findings have been published only in Japanese,with few exceptions such as Kyoko Ishida, Why Female Lawyers Get Less Multiple Glass
Ceilings for Japanese Female Lawyers, 39 Hastings Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 411 (2016)
94

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extensive dataset of Japanese lawyers. 95 They used data from a nation-wide
economic basis survey of lawyers conducted by the JFBA in 2010. 96
Another project led by Setsuo Miyazawa conducted nation-wide surveys ofyoung lawyers to describe lawyers’ entry-level careers.97 They conductedsurveys twice (in 2011 and 2014) to the cohort of lawyers who became
lawyers in 2009 (i.e., one year and four years after their bar registrations).
Aside from the abovementioned two projects, Minoru Nakazato andcolleagues employed a unique approach from taxpayer data: they gathered
the names and the tax amount of lawyers on the high-income taxpayer list
(which was publicly available until 2004), and analyzed the determinants oflawyers’ incomes.98
In North America, studies have been conducted on various different
scales. First, there have been studies using a nation-wide dataset. The Afterthe JD (the “AJD”) project is a longitudinal study of the cohort of U.S. law
school graduates who became lawyers in 2000. 99 Ronit Dinovitzer andBryant G. Garth, for instance, analyzed data from the AJD’s first wave
survey, at which the participating lawyers had practice experiences for one
or two years.100
Second, there were studies on lawyers in specific regional areas.
John P. Heinz and colleagues famously studied Chicago lawyers by face-toface interviews in 1995. 101 Fiona M. Kay and colleagues analyzed thesurvey data of lawyers in Ontario, Canada. 102 Another study of Dinovitzer(examining the issue of gender gap in English by using the data of both projects).
See Iwao Sato, Hendoki no nihon no bengoshi, in HENDOKI NO NIHON NO
BENGOSHI [JAPANESE LAWYERS IN THE CHANGING PERIOD] 1, 4–7 (Iwao Sato & Ryo
95

Hamano eds., 2015).
96

See infra App. B for details of the survey by the JFBA.

97
See Setsuo Miyazawa et al., Dai 62ki bengoshi no kyoiku haikei, gyomu kankyo,
senmon bunka, manzoku kan, oyobi fuankan [Educational Background, Work Environment,
Specialization, Satisfaction, and Concerns of the Practicing Attorneys of the 62nd Cohort :Second Report of the First Mailed Questionnaire Survey], 6 AOYAMA HOMU KENKYU
RONSHU 35 (2013); Setsuo Miyazawa et al., Dai 62ki bengoshi dai 2kai yuso chosa dai 2ho[The Second Report of the Second Mailed Questionnaire Survey of the 62nd Cohort
Attorneys: From Bivariate Analysis to Multivariate Analysis], 10 AOYAMA HOMU KENKYU
RONSHU 39 (2015).

See Minoru Nakazato et al., The Industrial Organization of the Japanese Bar:
Levels and Determinants of Attorney Income, 7 J. EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD. 460 (2010).
98

See generally, Bryant G. Garth, et al., After the JD, AM. B. FOUND.,
http://www.americanbarfoundation.org/research/project/118 (last visited Aug. 1, 2018) forthe history of the AJD project and the summary of their findings.
99

See Ronit Dinovitzer & Bryant G. Garth, Lawyer Satisfaction in the Process ofStructuring Legal Careers, 41 LAW & SOC’Y REV. 1 (2007).
100

101

See John P. Heinz et al., URBAN LAWYERS 19 (2005).

102

See Fiona M. Kay et al., Undermining Gender Equality: Female Attrition from

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focused on Jewish lawyers in Canada (who moved from Quebec to Ontario
between 1975 to 1990 during the period of political change in Quebec). 103
Third, studies have created individual datasets of specific law
schools’ alumni. Jeffrey Evan Stake and colleagues examined the survey
data of graduates of Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington at thetime five years (the cohort of classes 1995–2001) and fifteen years (thecohort of classes 1985–1991) after graduations. 104 John Monahan andJeffrey Swanson analyzed graduates of the University of Virginia School ofLaw, after seventeen years of graduations (the cohort of class 1990).105 The
University of Michigan Law School has compiled data from the alumni
surveys at 5th-, 15th-, 25th-, and 35th-anniversary of their graduations;
Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt and Kaushik Mukhopadhuya analyzed data fromthe fifth-year survey of classes 1987–91 and the 15th-year survey of classes
1977–81.106
The major findings from those studies are basically similar in Japan
and North America. First, lawyers’ incomes are largely predictable from theeducational factors (e.g., the ranks of schools and the GPAs at school) andthe professional working environments (e.g., the locations of firms, the sizesof firms, and the years of practice). In short, “elite” lawyers from higher
ranked schools (with higher GPAs) are more inclined to work for larger law
firms in the city, where they mainly serve for larger corporate clients in morelarge-scale lucrative transactions and litigations. 107 On the other hand,
Private Law Practice, 50 LAW & SOC’Y REV. 766 (2016).
See Ronit Dinovitzer, Social Capital and Constraints on Legal Careers, 40
LAW & SOC’Y REV. 445 (2006).
103

See Jeffrey Evans Stake et al., Income and Career Satisfaction in the Legal
Profession: Survey Data from Indiana Law School Graduates, 4 J. EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD.
939 (2007).
104

See John Monahan & Jeffrey Swanson, Lawyers at Mid-Career: A 20-Year
Longitudinal Study of Job and Life Satisfaction, 6 J. EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUD. 451 (2009).
105

See Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt & Kaushik Mukhopadhaya, The Fruits of Our
Labors: An Empirical Study of the Distribution of Income and Job Satisfaction Across theLegal Profession, 49 J. LEGAL EDUC. 342 (1999).
106

107
See, e.g., Atsushi Bushimata, Gyomu no naiyo, sono kiteiyouin, oyobi gyomu
no senmonka [Practice Areas, their Determinants, and their Specializtion], in Dai 62ki
bengoshi dai 2kai yuso chosa dai 2ho [The Second Report of the Second Mailed
Questionnaire Survey of the 62nd Cohort Attorneys: From Bivariate Analysis toMultivariate Analysis] supra note 97, at 72 (finding three groups of lawyers—individual
clients oriented, large corporate clients oriented, and small to medium-sized corporateclients oriented—which are determined by location of firm and law school); Akira
Fujimoto, Kyaria torajekutori: torokuchi, jimusho deno chii, torokuchi jimusho no henka[Career Trajectory: Location of Registration, Position in the Firm, Changes of Locationand the Firm] in id., at 53 (comparing lawyers in provinces and in large firms in the cities,
and finding the impact of law school); Nakazato et al., supra note 98, at 488 (concludingthat elite lawyers stay in Tokyo to pursue highly profitable jobs while less-talented lawyers
choose to stay in Tokyo with less profitable jobs or choose to move out in other areas);

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lawyers from lower ranked schools (with lower GPAs) are more inclined towork for smaller law firms in provinces, where they mainly serve forsmaller corporations and individual clients. 108 In addition, lawyers withlonger experiences of practice tend to have higher incomes. 109 Second,
lawyers’ innate demographics—particularly gender—have certain
influences on their legal careers. On average, female lawyers have shorter
working hours, lower incomes, and their legal careers are more likely to beinterrupted (e.g., lower positions at law firms and higher rates of moving
out of private practices).110 To be more precise, gender itself may have little
impact on lawyers’ careers when controlling for other factors, but female
lawyers’ careers are negatively affected when they have children and bearburdens of parental care. 111

Ikuo Sugawara, Bengoshi no keizaikiban to soshojitsumu no genjo no chiikisa [Regional
Differences in the Current Status of Lawyers’ Economic Foundation and Litigation
Practices] in HENDOKI NO NIHON NO BENGOSHI [JAPANESE LAWYERS IN THE CHANGINGPERIOD], supra note 95, at 127 (finding the regional differences between Tokyo andprovinces in the unit price per case and the characteristics of clients and cases) for Japaneselawyers; Dau-Schmidt & Mukhopadhuya, supra note 106, at 354–55 (finding the impactsof GPA, business type, location of firm, and size of law firm on lawyers’ incomes);
Dinovitzer & Garth, supra note 100, at 11, 33–40 (finding the strong association with law
school and size of law firm); Heinz et al., supra note 101, at 170–71 (finding the impactsof law school, class rank, client type, and size of law firm on lawyers’ incomes); Monahan& Swanson, supra note 105, at 470 (finding the impacts of GPA at law school and size oflaw firm on lawyers’ salaries); Stake at al., supra note 104, at 969, 972 (finding the impactsof size of law firm and type of business on lawyers’ incomes) for North American lawyers.
108

See supra note 107.

109
See, e.g., Nakazato et al., supra note 98, at 475 for Japanese lawyers;
Dinovitzer, supra note 103, at 468; Heinz et al., supra note 101, at 170–71; Stake at al.,supra note 104, at 969, 972 for North American lawyers.

See, e.g., Ishida, supra note 94, at 423–27 (finding female lawyers’ shorter
working hours and lower incomes) for Japanese lawyers; Dau-Schmidt & Mukhopadhuya,supra note 106, at 358 (finding female lawyers’ lower incomes); Heinz et al., supra note
101, at 170–71, 263–69 (finding female lawyers’ lower incomes and lower satisfactions
with factors such as salary, chances of advancement, and control over amount of work);
Kay et al., supra note 102, at 781 (finding that female lawyers are more likely to leave
private practice); Monahan & Swanson, supra note 105, at 469 (finding female lawyers’
lower salaries regardless of type of business and size of firm) for North American lawyers.
110

See, e.g., Ishida, supra note 94, at 428–35 (finding the negative impacts forfemale lawyers of having a child on their income and working hours) for Japanese lawyers;
Heinz et al., supra note 101, at 265 (finding the strongly significant gender differences on
job satisfactions for lawyers with children while finding no significant gender difference
for lawyers without children); Stake at al., supra note 104, at 972 (finding the negative
impact of female with the burden of childcare on lawyers’ incomes while not finding any
negative impact of female without such a burden) for North American lawyers.
111

Saito2.

29

Control Variables

As has been implied by the studies above, professional
circumstances would influence a variety of aspects of lawyers’ practices.
Therefore, in order to control their effects, I include years of practice,location of firms, and proportions of divorce cases in common as control
variables. Some additional variables are included in each separate analysis
to control the impacts of the lawyers’ professional factors more precisely.
In the analysis of incomes, I include divorce lawyers’ specialties inother practice areas as additional control variables. Lawyers earn incomesfrom all of their practice areas. In particular, the preceding studies oflawyers’ careers have suggested that corporate lawyers earn more money
than lawyers serving for individuals or small corporations. 112 As somedivorce lawyers have another specialty in corporate clients, 113 it is essential
to control for divorce lawyers’ other practice areas when examining theirfinancial successes in divorce cases.
In the analyses of fees and disputing behaviors, I use two
professional factors as additional control variables: the proportion of female
clients; and the proportion of custody disputes in respondents’ divorce cases.
The reasons for including these factors are that how lawyers take fees fromclients and how they behave in disputes may depend on the characteristicsof their cases and clients. In particular, disputes over child custody areusually more difficult to settle than pure financial disputes; at the same time,lawyers may feel it easier to charge higher fees to clients in custody disputes.
Also, female clients more often lack financial resources in the beginning of
the disputes compared to male clients—it is more difficult to charge aretaining fee to female clients. But, female clients are more likely to gain
(rather than lose) economic benefits in the end through property divisionand to obtain the custody of children—it is easier to charge contingency fees
to female clients. It would be plausible to assume that these clients’characteristics might influence divorce lawyers’ fee systems and disputing
behaviors.
Lastly, for lawyers’ basic demographic factors, I include gender andage as control variables in common. It would be necessary to control forgender because the preceding studies of legal careers have shown the impactof lawyer’s gender on legal practices. 114 Also, it would be preferable tocontrol for age in addition to years of practice. Considering that age is often
an important element for family issues, it would be natural to assume—particularly in the case of divorce lawyers—that age and years of practice
may have different effects on their practices. Actually, the survey and the112

See supra Section II.B.1.

Approximately 20% of divorce lawyers have another specialty in corporatebankruptcies and in general corporate affairs, respectively. See supra Section II.B.1.
113

114

See supra Section I.A.

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interviews support this assumption. An intriguing example is the female
clients’ preferences for older lawyers; older divorce lawyers (not necessarily
experienced lawyers) tend to have higher proportions of female clients. 115
On the other hand, as presented in the analyses below, years of practice also
has a certain impact on divorce lawyers’ incomes and fees. 116 Therefore, I
control for both age and years of practice in the analyses. 117
C. Analysis of Incomes
The first analysis addresses the determinants of divorce lawyers’
incomes. The amount of income is one of the most important aspects oflawyers’ practices; it is a typical proxy variable to measure lawyers’
successes—at least, financial successes. 118 Applying the Hypothesis—
lawyers with divorce- or family-related private experiences are better as
divorce lawyers—to lawyers’ incomes, the proposition to be tested in theanalysis of incomes is:
Proposition A: Divorce lawyers with divorce- or family-related
private experiences earn higher incomes than divorce lawyers
without those private experiences.
Table 4 reports the results of regressions of incomes (natural log
transformed).119 In Column (1), I control for the major professional factors
See supra Section II.B.2. When other factors are held equal in the regression
analysis, one-year [ten-year] increase of lawyer’s age increases the proportion of female
clients by 0.71% [7.1%] (p < 0.01) while the effect of years of practice is not statisticallysignificant. Also, age (r = 0.18) has a higher correlation with the proportion of female
clients than the years of practice (r = 0.08).
115

116

See infra Sections III.C and III.D.

The correlation of age and years of practice of respondents is not extremely
strong (r = 0.85). In Japan, the years spent until lawyers passed the bar exam greatly differ
among lawyers. See generally Nakazato et al., supra note 98. Also, some lawyers became
lawyers after experiencing another career. Consequently, a lawyer’s years of practice does
not always correspond to his or her age. VIF for each variable is not high (e.g., 3.32 foryears of practice, and 3.22 for age, in the case of Column (1) of the income analysis in
Table 4), meaning putting these two variables together in a model does not cause the issueof severe multicollinearity.
117

118
In fact, a number of preceding studies of legal careers have addressed thedeterminants of incomes. See supra Section III.B.1.

Logarithmic transformation is a commonly used technique for the analysis ofvariables that increase exponentially—e.g., incomes and populations. When you use anatural log transformed variable, you can observe associations between the variables by
the percentage change (not by the raw unit). In unreported results, I have also run the
regressions with raw incomes (not natural log transformed) as the dependent variable.
Although p-values change slightly, the findings are robust. The raw income models indicate,other characteristics held equal, divorce lawyers with an experience of own divorce have
JPY 2.9 million higher or JPY 2.2 million higher (in models with the same independent
119

Saito31(i.e., years of practice,120 proportion of divorce cases, and location of firm)
as well as the basic demographic factors (i.e., age and gender) to observe
the effects of lawyers’ divorce- or family-related private experiences (i.e.,
marriage, child, own divorce, and parents’ divorce) on their incomes.
Column (2) is a model further controlling for lawyers’ professional factors
pertaining to their specialties in other practice areas.

variables as Columns (1) and (2) in Table 4, respectively) annual incomes than those who
without such an experience.
The squared term of years of practice (or age) is not added. It is sometimes
useful to add the squared term when estimating lawyers’ incomes because lawyers often
have a peak of incomes in their mid-career. See also infra note 142. However, in the caseof divorce lawyers in the present survey, there is no clear peak in the mid-career, and adding
the squared term does not improve fit.
120

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TABLE 4: REGRESSIONS OF LN INCOME(1)
Ln IncomeOLS
0.114(0.100)0.156*(0.0900)
0.373*** (0.125)
0.150*(0.0876)-0.00351 (0.00798)-0.197** (0.0973)
0.0153*(0.00893)-0.00190 (0.00179)(2)
Ln IncomeOLS
0.100(0.108)0.173*(0.0930)
0.286**(0.138)0.213**(0.0955)
0.000950(0.00767)-0.108(0.0968)
0.00334(0.00905)-0.00275(0.00188)

MarriageChildOwn divorce
Parents’ divorce
Age
Gender (female)Years of practice
Proportion of divorce cases
Location of firm (ref. others)
Tokyo district
0.0589(0.0934)0.0506(0.0912)
Provinces district
0.0213(0.118)0.0426(0.118)Specialty criminal-0.0118(0.0779)
Specialty juvenile-0.0181(0.0920)
Specialty inheritance
0.0756(0.0861)
Specialty estate0.0318(0.107)
Specialty debt collection
0.0585(0.115)Specialty consumer-0.0818(0.144)
Specialty traffic accident-0.00213(0.0832)
Specialty labor
0.0146(0.0821)
Specialty foreigners
0.186(0.193)Specialty personal debt
-0.0118(0.0920)
Specialty corporate bankruptcy
0.282**(0.119)Specialty general corporate
0.212**(0.0981)Specialty IP-0.204(0.175)Specialty medical-0.00649(0.130)No other specialty
0.0906(0.186)
Constant
2.064*** (0.248)
1.858***(0.247)
Observations
186
185
2
Adj R
0.118
0.158
Notes: The table shows the results of OLS regressions of income (natural log of income)on various characteristics of divorce lawyers. Robust standard errors in parentheses.
*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

I start with observing the impacts of the control variables(professional factors and demographic factors) on incomes. Column (1)presents that effects of gender and years of practice are statisticallysignificant (p < 0.05 and p < 0.1 respectively). Based on the model ofColumn (1), one more year of practice experience raises incomes by 1.5%,
and female lawyers earn 19.7% less incomes than male lawyers. These
results of gender and years of practice are consistent with the precedingstudies on lawyers’ careers.121 Also, as expected from the preceding studies,
Column (2) shows that divorce lawyers who concurrently serve forcorporate clients have higher incomes; more specifically, lawyers with anexpertise in corporate bankruptcies have 28.2% higher (p < 0.05), and those121

See supra Section III.B.1.

Saito33

with an expertise in general corporate affairs have 21.2% higher incomes (p< 0.05). At the same time, the impacts of gender and years of practice
disappear when the respondents’ other areas of specialties are controlled inColumn (2). The results indicate that the effects of gender and years ofpractice may be attributable to divorce lawyers’ margins for additional areasof specialties with corporate clients. In other words, it implies that genderand years of practice may not have impacts on divorce lawyers’ pureearnings from divorce case practices.
Regarding the main issue—the impacts of private experiences—I
find definite effects of own divorce experiences. The coefficient is large.
Other factors held equal, divorce lawyers with a private experience of own
divorce have 37.3% higher (p < 0.01, Column (1)) or 28.6% higher (p <0.05, Column (2)) annual incomes. Furthermore, other divorce- or familyrelated experiences also have positive impacts on divorce lawyers’ incomes.
The results show that having a child increases incomes by 15.6% (p < 0.1,
Column (1)) or 17.3% (p < 0.1, Column (2)). An experience of parents’divorce in the past increases incomes by 15.0% (p < 0.1, Column (1)) or
21.3% (p < 0.05, Column (2)).
In summary, the results of regressions of incomes support the
Proposition A. Lawyers’ private divorce- or family-related experiences—
especially an experience of own divorce—do facilitate their financial
successes as divorce lawyers. Based on their private firsthand experiences,
those lawyers presumably have more passion in divorce cases and havebetter understandings of divorcing situations and clients’ feelings.
A possible counter argument would be that the relationship between
lawyers’ own divorce and incomes may be spurious and not causal: for
instance, workaholic lawyers earn more money as they work very hard, butthey may be inclined to end up divorcing in their private lives because they
are too busy working and sacrifice their family lives. Unfortunately, it is not
feasible to directly examine this counter argument with the present survey
data because it does not contain the information of respondents’ working
hours. However, my argument—there is a causal relationship between
lawyers’ own divorce and incomes—is plausible for four reasons.
First, the interview data is consistent with my argument. As
indicated in Section III.A.2, the interviews with the lawyers who have anexperience of divorce (or separation) implied causal relationships between
their divorce experiences and professional practices. On the other hand,none of the interviewees implied their divorce was due to their workaholic.
Second, as described above, divorce- or family-related experiences
other than own divorce have positive impacts on divorce lawyers’ incomesas well. These results are consistent with my argument; a lawyer’s divorceor family-related experiences—his or her parents’ divorce in the past andhaving a child—could facilitate his or her passion and an understanding indivorce cases. In contrast, the workaholic argument is not consistent with

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these results because a lawyer’s workaholic working style is not likely tocause his or her parents’ divorce or to enhance having a child.
Third and most importantly, a positive impact of own divorce on
incomes is found by the present study uniquely among divorce lawyers. It
has not been found among lawyers in other practice areas or among workers
in other occupations. Assuming the workaholic argument to be true, thepositive association of divorces and incomes should be observed in lawyers
and workers in general. Preceding studies of lawyers (i.e., legal careerstudies of lawyers in all practice areas) have not found any positive impactof lawyers’ divorce on their incomes.122 Also, to the best of my knowledge,
no sociological studies have found any positive influences of divorce on
incomes of general workers. 123 In Appendix B, I analyze datasets of wholelawyers and workers in other occupations in Japan to further supplementthat the positive relationships of divorce with incomes are not found among
them.
Fourth, under the workaholic argument, the positive association of
divorces and working hours should be present. However, at least in the casesof lawyers in other areas and workers in other occupations, their divorce
experiences are found to be not associated with their working hours—
details are noted in Appendix B.
D. Analysis of Fees
The second analysis is about the determinants of lawyers’ fees indivorce cases. The first analysis of incomes was from a relatively macro
viewpoint, in which I assessed lawyers’ overall financial successes. In
contrast, the analysis of fees is at a more micro level, which focuses onlawyers’ daily practices and successes purely in divorce cases. I use two
dependent variables in this section’s analysis—the overall contingency
ratio and the fee system for child support.
As overviewed in Section II.B.4, the most common fee system fordivorce cases in Japan includes a retaining fee, an overall contingency fee,and an economic-benefits-based contingency fee. As a general rule, lawyers
ask for an overall contingency fee only if the outcomes were satisfactory to
the clients. Therefore, I use the overall contingency ratio—the proportionof divorce cases (conciliation cases) in which the divorce lawyers actually
requested an overall contingency fee to the client—for a dependent variable,
which works as a proxy to measure each lawyer’s overall success rate in the
See supra Section III.B.1. The preceding studies have not even examined theimpact of own divorce; none of the studies listed in Section III.B.1 used divorce as anindependent variable in their analyses.
122

See, e.g., Shigeto Tanaka, Gender Gap in Equivalent Household Income After
Divorce, in A QUANTITATIVE PICTURE OF CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE FAMILIES 321(Shigeto Tanaka ed., 2013) (finding negative influences of divorce on household incomesof Japanese families).
123

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divorce cases. It is difficult to define a “success” in divorce cases, but by
using this overall contingency ratio, we can roughly figure out eachlawyer’s overall success rate.
Another dependent variable is the fee system for child support. As
described in Section II.B.4, there are two major systematic approaches tocalculate the economic-benefits-based contingency fees in terms of childsupport—whether to include child support for two years or not to include
child support at all in the calculation. I use these two systematic choices as
a proxy to measure the divorce lawyers’ successes in disputes over childsupport. As noted in Section II.B.4, most interviewees did not raise any
particular reason for their choices. Thus, I assume that their choices are
made rationally (and maybe unconsciously) in accordance with the realityof their practices. If lawyers were more passionate and better at obtaining,
increasing, or reducing child support, they certainly would like tosystematically reflect the value of their works in their fee systems—that
would be fairer for clients as an interviewee mentioned 124 and more
economically rational for lawyers. There may be exceptional cases (e.g.,regardless of their fee system, lawyers may give up taking fees in a casewhere the client has no money and the amount of child custody is very little),
but it would be reasonable to assume that divorce lawyers who are more
successful in child support disputes would be more inclined to adopt thetwo-year fee standard for child support as a default rule.
Therefore, applying the Hypothesis to the context of divorce lawyers’
fees, the two testable propositions in the analysis of fees are:Proposition B-1: Divorce lawyers with divorce- or family-related
private experiences end up requesting an overall contingency fee ina higher percentage of their divorce cases.
Proposition B-2: Divorce lawyers with divorce- or family-related
private experiences have higher odds of adopting a calculation
standard of economic-benefits-based contingency fee that includes
the amount of child support for two years.
Columns (1) and (2) in Table 5 present the results for the overall
contingency ratio (%) and the fee system for child support, respectively.
First of all, Column (1) reports that the effect of own divorce on theoverall contingency ratio is significant (p < 0.05). Other characteristics held
equal, divorce lawyers with a private experience of own divorce eventually
request an overall contingency fee to clients in 23.30% higher proportion of
their divorce cases. This result confirms the Proposition B-1. In other words,
we can say lawyers with personal divorce experience successfully provide
satisfactory outcomes to the clients in 23.30% more divorce cases than124

See interview with lawyer G excerpted in supra Section II.B.4.

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lawyers without an own divorce experience in the past. Lawyers’ private
experiences of divorce facilitate their professional successes in each divorce
dispute.
Turning to the control variables, the result indicates that lawyers
with more (longer or denser) experiences of divorce cases are more skillful
and better at handling divorce cases. It shows positive impacts of years ofpractice and the proportions of divorce cases while no other demographic
or professional factors have significant effects: one more year of practiceexperience increases the overall contingency ratio by 1.66% (p < 0.05); and1% higher proportion of divorce cases raises the overall contingency ratio
by 0.36% (p < 0.01).
TABLE 5: REGRESSIONS OF FEES
(1)
Overall Contingency
OLS-6.777(7.818)-2.298(7.633)23.30** (10.85)-6.101(7.319)-0.806(0.668)-11.89(7.780)1.658** (0.740)
0.364*** (0.130)-0.0770(0.146)0.202(0.156)(2)
Fee Child Support
Logit-0.287(0.587)
0.991*(0.575)1.519(1.025)-0.315(0.638)-0.0509(0.0328)
1.016*(0.583)-0.00125(0.0401)-0.0102(0.0109)
0.0213** (0.0105)-0.00670(0.0102)

MarriageChildOwn divorce
Parents’ divorce
Age
Gender (female)Years of practice
Proportion of divorce cases
Proportion of female clients
Proportion of custody disputes
Location of firm (ref. others)
Tokyo district
2.127(6.765)
1.123**(0.488)Provinces district-8.195(6.959)0.521(0.504)
Constant
69.22*** (22.57)
0.577(1.076)
Observations
141
135
2
Adj R
0.065
—
Pseudo R2—
0.115
Notes: Column (1) shows the result of an OLS regression of the proportion of overall
contingency requested (%) (i.e., the proportion of conciliation cases in which respondents
actually requested clients to pay an overall contingency fee at the end of the case) on
various characteristics of divorce lawyers. Column (2) shows the result of a logistic
regression of the fee system regarding child support (i.e., whether or not to include theamount of child support in the calculations of economic-benefits-based contingency fee).
Robust standard errors in parentheses.
*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

In Column (2), the effect of an own divorce experience is not
significant on the fee system for child support. However, the result implies
a significant positive effect of having a child (p < 0.1). This result confirms
the Proposition B-2 above. Presumably, lawyers who have own children are
more capable of understanding clients’ feelings toward children and have

Saito37

more passion in gaining child support;125 and they are more diligent andsuccessful in disputes over child support. As a result, they systematicallytake fees for obtaining child support.
The result also indicates the impacts of some control variables. Bothof lawyers’ gender (female) (p < 0.1) and the proportion of female clients(p < 0.05) positively affect the fee system for child support. The effect ofthe proportion of female clients can probably be explained by the fact thatfemale clients are more likely to claim for child support against thecounterparty than male clients; therefore, it would be easier for lawyers withmore female clients to systematically take fees for child support. The effectof gender can be explained from the same reason because female lawyers
have a higher proportion of female clients.126 The impact of Tokyo is also
positive (p < 0.05). One possible reason is that the need for obtaining childsupport may be higher for divorcing females in Tokyo; the rent is higher
and they cannot expect housing or daily support from parents if they havemigrated to Tokyo from other areas of Japan.
E. Analysis of Disputing Behaviors
The last topic is the determinants of divorce lawyers’ disputing
behaviors. As shown in Section II.B.5, divorce lawyers’ strategic
preferences among the three stages—negotiations, conciliations, andlitigations—vary from lawyer to lawyer although conciliation cases are
Japanese divorce lawyers’ central jobs in general. From which stage theytake cases and how they proceed with their cases after being retained differ
from lawyer to lawyer.
I focus on the ratio of litigation cases to conciliation cases (thelitigation/conciliation ratio) for the dependent variable. 127 This ratio
represents the lawyer’s disputing behaviors at the conciliations—more
specifically, his or her avoidance of conciliations and failure frequencies tosettle cases through conciliations. I suppose lawyers with divorce- orfamily-related experiences do not provide shoddy services to clients. They
would be more diligent—not avoiding conciliations for their own
convenience—and more successful in settling cases through conciliations
without going to litigations. Consequently, applying the Hypothesis to thecontext of divorce lawyers’ disputing behaviors, the proposition to be testedis:
See interview with lawyer A (who has a young daughter) excerpted in supra
Section III.A.2.
125

126

See supra Section II.B.2.

In an unreported result, I have also run the regression of the ratio of
negotiations to conciliations with the same independent and control variables. But, I havenot found any significant effects of lawyers’ divorce- or family-related experiences on theirnegotiation ratios.
127

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Proposition C: Divorce lawyers with divorce- or family-related
private experiences have lower ratios of litigations to conciliations.
Table 6 shows the result of regression of the litigation/conciliation
ratio. Using the same dependent variables as the previous analysis of fees,
I examine the effects of the private experiences of divorce lawyers (i.e.,
marriage, child, own divorce, and parents’ divorce) while controlling fortheir professional and demographic factors.
TABLE 6: REGRESSION OF DISPUTING BEHAVIORS
Litig./Concil. Ratio
OLS
8.970
(6.622)-4.133(9.196)-13.78** (5.465)
3.048(5.578)0.606(0.525)-1.746(5.506)0.249(0.604)-0.0104(0.0849)
0.0694(0.0954)-0.0203(0.125)

MarriageChildOwn divorce
Parents’ divorce
Age
Gender (female)Years of practice
Proportion of divorce cases
Proportion of female clients
Proportion of custody disputes
Location of firm (ref. others)
Tokyo district
11.79** (5.067)
Provinces district
9.707*(5.622)
Constant-6.095(16.62)
Observations
183
Adj R2
0.098
Notes: The table shows the result of an OLS regression of
the litigation/conciliation ratio (%) on various characteristics
of divorce lawyers. Robust standard errors in parentheses.
*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

Among the lawyers’ private experiences, having a history of own
divorce has a significant impact. Other factors held equal, an own divorce
experience reduces the ratio of litigations by 13.78% (p < 0.05). This result
supports Proposition C. Lawyers with an experience of own divorce are lessinclined to go to litigations; in other words, they are more positive andpersistent in using conciliations, compared to single or married lawyers.
Based on their private divorce experiences, those lawyers are presumably
more diligent to pursue settlements through conversations and better atsettling cases.
Turning to the other control variables, almost no professional factors
have an impact. Incidentally, however, I find an impact of firm locations.
Compared to the other middle-sized cities, both lawyers in Tokyo district(+11.79%, p < 0.05) and provinces district (+9.71%, p < 0.1) have higher
litigation ratios. I cannot provide clear explanations for these effects, butSaito39

some possible reasons are as follows. Lawyers in Tokyo are perhaps morecost- and time-sensitive as the legal market is more competitive in Tokyo;
they may be more inclined to avoid taking time-consuming conciliations. In
addition, lawyers in Tokyo are not acquainted with each other while most(at least half) divorce lawyers in smaller cities are usually acquainted witheach other, 128 which may cause differences in settlement rates atconciliations. Alternatively, it may be due to the nature of the clients—
clients in Tokyo may be more open to going to litigations than in otherplaces. At the same time, in provinces district with a shortage of lawyers,
lawyers are probably more inclined to limit their works for each client (i.e.,
avoid taking cases at the stage of conciliations) in order to manage anexcessive number of clients per lawyer. 129
F. Summary of Findings
In summary, the findings from all of the three analyses—incomes,
fees, and disputing behaviors—support the Hypothesis. Lawyers withdivorce- or family-related experiences (especially, an experience of own
divorce) are better as divorce lawyers. Those experiences in private life
facilitate their successes as divorce lawyers. Apparently, they have morepassion in divorce cases and are more capable of understanding clients’feelings.
The analysis of incomes shows that lawyers with an own divorce
experience have higher incomes; it also indicates positive effects ofexperiences of parents’ divorce and having an own child on their incomes.
I find from the analysis of fees that lawyers with an own divorce experience
have higher odds of requesting an overall contingency fee to clients and thatlawyers having an own child have higher odds of systematically requestingfees for child support. It can be interpreted that those lawyers have higher
odds of “winning” the cases and child support respectively. Lawyers’ own
divorce experiences affect their disputing behaviors in divorce cases aswell—they have lower ratios of litigations to conciliations. Those lawyers
are presumably more diligent and more successful in settling cases throughconciliations.

128

See interviews with all of the interviewees in provinces.

See interview with lawyer F in supra Section II.B.5 (confessing that he tends
to avoid conciliations for his own good); interview with lawyer E (mentioning her policy
to avoid, whenever possible, taking conciliations); interview with lawyer L (sharing that
he sometimes recommend clients to do conciliations by themselves partly because
conciliations take time for him, but also because that is a realistic option for clients who
are financially challenged). All of the lawyers above (F, E, and L) practice in provinces.
129

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G. Discussion
I find divorce lawyers’ private experiences (especially, an
experience of own divorce) to have great impacts on their daily practices.
Further studies are needed to uncover details of the mechanisms. Also, theempirical scope of the present study is limited to the divorce lawyers’
practices in Japan. However, this study’s findings would offer implications
to any legal professionals even outside of Japan. As presented in Section
III.A.2, the broader Generalized Hypothesis could be: practices of the legal
professionals can be affected by their emotional private experiences in thepast, which are relevant to the cases. For instance, it may be applicable todivorce lawyers in the U.S. or any other countries. It may also apply tolawyers in other practice areas such as lawyers with a private experience of
medical malpractice in medical cases. Perhaps, it may even apply to judges
in divorce cases—judges with an own divorce experience may be morepassionate and diligent in handling divorce cases.
The findings of the present study (and the possibilities ofgeneralizations) have four implications—they are not merely fun facts. First,
from a scholarly perspective, it suggests that legal scholars should notignore the legal professionals’ private factors when studying their practices
and behaviors. Particularly in Japan, most legal scholars and practitioners
still seem to have a blind faith that the legal professionals are so professionalthat they are not influenced by their personal and private experiences. But,
their view is not consistent with the findings of the present study. Second,from a practical viewpoint, it would help individual lawyers to seek theirways to be successful lawyers. Uncovering the determinants of lawyers’
practices and professional behaviors would help lawyers improve theirpractices. For instance, if a lawyer has an experience of own divorce, he or
she is in a vantage position to succeed as a divorce lawyer. Third, it would
be beneficial for clients when choosing lawyers that fit the best for them. If
a person is looking for a good divorce lawyer, hiring someone with an own
divorce experience could be one strategy. 130 That would increase his or her
probability of retaining a good divorce lawyer. Lastly, it would give new
insights into how to improve legal education. Legal education in many
countries (including Japan and the U.S.) have traditionally valued classes oflegal theories and legal logic. But, the results of the present study suggestthat lawyers’ emotional firsthand experiences make great impacts on theirpractices. Therefore, we may need to teach emotions in addition to logic. It
may also be effective to introduce a new type of clinical programs that allow
students to experience or simulate clients’ roles in a variety of legal cases togain “quasi-firsthand” experiences, in addition to the classical-type clinicalprograms where students mainly observe professional works and experiencelawyers’ roles.
130
In fact, some divorce lawyers indicate their personal divorce experience on
their website or their profile page on the online database such as Bengoshi.com.

Saito41

CONCLUSION
Data on Japanese divorce lawyers presents the inter-person
disparities in their practices (e.g., female clients, incomes, fees, anddisputing behaviors). The disparities are quite large even within the samepractice area of divorce.
I find that one intriguing determinant of Japanese divorce lawyers’
practices is their personal private experiences related to divorce or family—
especially, their own divorce experience in the past. Those who havedivorce- or family-related experiences in private life engage in divorce
cases more diligently and more successfully. An American jurist, Oliver W.
Holmes, Jr. famously wrote that “[t]he life of the law has not been logic; it
has been experience.”131 Probably, we should now take it more seriouslythat the legal professionals’ private experiences are also the importantfactors for the life of the law.

131

OLIVER W. HOLMES, JR. THE COMMON LAW 1 (1881).

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APPENDIX A SUMMARY STATISTICS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF VARIABLES132
Variable

Mean (SD) [Range]or Ratio (%)

N

Description

10.12(5.19) [1–22.5]

197

A lawyer’s annual income (JPY million). A lawyer
self-reported his/her annual income from eightcategories (intervals). To convert the categories
into a continuous variable, each category is
substituted by its intermediate value: To calculate
the intermediate values, the lower limit of less than
JPY 2 million is presumed to be 0. The upper limit
of more than JPY 20 million is presumed to be JPY
25 million at equal distance with the preceding
interval.

54.09(32.63) [0.00–100.00]

155

53.33%

150

The proportion of conciliation cases in which a lawyer
actually requested clients to pay overall
contingency fees at the end of the cases (%). To the
respondents who answered they normally include
an overall contingency fee in their fee system, thesurvey asked the number of divorce conciliations inwhich they actually requested an overall
contingency fee in the past ten years. It was divided
by the number of divorce conciliations theyhandled in the past ten years (x100) to calculate theratio.
1 if a lawyer has the fee system to include the amountof child support for two years in the calculation of
economic-benefits-based contingency fee (0 ifhe/she does not at all include the child support in
the fee calculations). To the 188 respondents who
answered they normally include an economicbenefits-based contingency fee in their fee system,
the survey asked how to calculate the benefits fromchild support. The survey offered four options: (a)include entire period (1.07%), (b) include two years(42.78%), (c) not at all include (37.43%), and (d)others (18.72%). The minor responses (a)(d) are
dropped from the analysis in order to focus on thetwo major systematic approaches (b)(c).

Dependent Variable
For Analysis of Incomes
Income (JPY million)

For Analysis of Fees
Overall contingency
ratio (%)

Fee system for childsupportFor Analysis of Disputing
Behaviors

The second column reports the mean (SD) [range] for continuous variables, theratio (%) of 1 for dummy variables, and the ratio (%) of each category for categoricalvariables, respectively.
132

SaitoVariableN

Description

199

The ratio of a lawyer’s divorce litigations to divorce
conciliations (%). A lawyer self-reported thenumber of divorce litigations he/she handled in thepast ten years. It was divided by the number ofdivorce conciliations he/she handled in the past ten
years (x100) to calculate the ratio.

66.17%
48.26%

201
201

Own divorce

7.46%

201

Parents’ divorce

12.94%

201

1 if a lawyer is currently married.
1 if a lawyer has a child (including a child who alreadypassed away).
1 if a lawyer has experienced his/her own divorce inthe past.
1 if a lawyer has experienced his/her parents’ divorcein the past.

9.34(8.02) [1–42]

198

27.89
(21.25) [0–98]

201

Litigation/conciliation
ratio (%)

Independent Variable
Private Experiences
MarriageChild

Control Variable
Professional Factors
Years of practice

Proportion of
divorce cases

Mean (SD) [Range]or Ratio (%)
32.15(28.39) [0.00–225.00]

43

A lawyer’s years of practice as a lawyer. 133 Selfreported by years. In case his/her practiceexperience was less than one year, he/she wasinstructed to answer 0.
The proportion (%) of divorce cases in a lawyer’s
entire works based on his/her workload in theprevious one year. Self-reported in percentage
terms.

With regard to years of practice, respondents were instructed to exclude years
as a judge or a prosecutor (if any) because these legal professions are considered as
different professions from lawyers in Japan. The legal professionals in Japan basicallychoose and pursue only one of the three professions (judge, prosecutor, and lawyer) for
their entire career after completion of the program at the Legal Training and ResearchInstitute of the Supreme Court of Japan (which is a one-year mandatory training program
after passing the bar exam).
133

44

Variable

Asian-Pacific Law & Policy JournalN

Description

198

The location of a lawyer’s firm, which is coded into
three categories: Tokyo district, Provinces district,and Others. The reference category is Others.
The survey asked the name of the court withjurisdiction for the location of a lawyer’s firm.
Japan has 50 main district courts and 203 branches(i.e., 253 jurisdictions in total). Among them,lawyers from 34 district courts and 31 branches(i.e., 65 different jurisdictions) responded to thissurvey.
Tokyo district: the firm locates under the jurisdictionof Tokyo District Court (not including its
Tachikawa branch).
Provinces district: the firm locates under thejurisdiction of main district courts or branches in
the rural area that have less than 100 lawyers in thejurisdiction. It includes respondents from sevenmain district courts and 23 branches.
Others: the firm locates in other jurisdictions (i.e., in
middle sized cities) than Tokyo district or Provinces
district. It includes respondents from 26 main
district courts and eight branches.

41.76(10.25) [28–80]
22.39%

197

A lawyer’s age. Self-reported by years.

201

1 if a lawyer is female.

Specialty criminal

41.00%

200

Specialty juvenile
Specialty inheritanceSpecialty estateSpecialty debt
collection
Specialty consumer
Specialty traffic
accident
Specialty labor
Specialty foreigners
Specialty personal debt
Specialty corporatebankruptcy
Specialty general
corporate
Specialty IP
Specialty medical
No other specialty

22.00%
56.50%
21.50%
22.50%

200
200
200
200

A lawyer’s specialties in other areas than divorce
cases. Self-reported from the following 14 areas in
the survey. 1 if a lawyer has another specialty incriminal cases.
1 if another specialty in juvenile cases.
1 if another specialty in testaments or inheritances.
1 if another specialty in estates or constructions.
1 if another specialty in debt collections.

12.00%
57.00%

200
200

1 if another specialty in consumer affairs.
1 if another specialty in traffic accidents

33.50%
3.50%
46.00%
17.50%

200
200
200
200

1 if another specialty in labor.
1 if another specialty in affairs related to foreigners.
1 if another specialty in personal debt affairs.
1 if another specialty in corporate bankruptcies.

19.50%

200

1 if another specialty in general corporate affairs.

5.50%
9.50%
5.50%

200
200
200

1 if another specialty in intellectual properties.
1 if another specialty in medical affairs.
1 if no other specialty than divorce cases.

Location of firm

Demographic Factors
Age
Gender (Female)

Mean (SD) [Range]or Ratio (%)
Tokyo dist. 22.73%,
Provinces dist. 18.18%,
Others 59.09%

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Extra Control Variable
For Analysis of IncomesSaitoVariable

45

Mean (SD) [Range]or Ratio (%)

N

Description

For Analyses of Fees &Disputing Behaviors
Proportion of
female clients

59.72(21.78) [0.00–100.00]

199

Proportion ofcustody disputes

35.97(22.40) [0.00–100.00]

196

The proportion of female clients in a lawyer’s divorce
conciliation cases in the past ten years (%). A lawyer
answered the number of divorce conciliation cases
he/she did in the past ten years and the number ofcases with female clients among them. The latter
was divided by the former (x100) to calculate theproportion.
The proportion of custody disputes in a lawyer’s
divorce conciliation cases in the past ten years (%).
A lawyer answered the number of divorce
conciliation cases he/she did in the last ten years andthe number of cases that had disagreements on postdivorce child custody between the parties at the firsthearing of the conciliations. The latter was divided
by the former (x100) to calculate the proportion.

APPENDIX B ANALYSES OF OTHER LAWYERS AND OTHER OCCUPATIONSAppendix B presents that the positive impacts of divorce on income do NOT exist
among lawyers in other practice areas and among workers in other occupations. The aimof this Appendix B is to confirm that the positive association between divorce and income
is found uniquely among divorce lawyers. Based on this Appendix B, the potential counter
argument (see Section III.B.4) that workaholic lawyers sacrificing their family lives are
more inclined to earn higher incomes would be rejected, and my Hypothesis would bebetter supported.
I analyze two different datasets, both of which were provided for the purpose ofacademic secondary analyses by the Social Science Japan Data Archive, Institute of Social
Science, the University of Tokyo. I first analyze a dataset based on a nation-wide surveyof lawyers’ economic basis, “Fact-finding Survey on Economic Foundation of Attorney
Practices, 2010” (conducted and deposited by the JFBA, herein after the “JFBA
dataset”).134 The JFBA has been conducting this kind of surveys in every ten years since1980. The dataset I use is from their newest survey in 2010, which covers 1568 practicing
Japanese lawyers in all practice areas (i.e., not screened by their practice areas). 135 The
strength of the JFBA dataset is in its scale; it is the most extensive dataset of Japaneselawyers’ economic basis. A weakness is that it does not contain detailed information
regarding lawyers’ marital status in the past. In that sense, the analysis of the impact of
their divorce experience is a little unclear.136
Furthermore, I analyze the case of workers in other occupations in Japan. The
dataset used is “National Family Research of Japan 2008 (NFRJ08)” (conducted anddeposited by the National Family Research Committee of the Japan Society of Family
Sociology, herein after the “NFRJ dataset”), of which respondents are the general public
in Japan. This dataset includes 3,564 respondents who work at a gainful job all overJapan. 137 The advantage of the NFRJ dataset is that it contains detailed data of the
respondents’ marital histories, as it was the largest survey focusing on Japanese families.
Thus, the analysis of the impact of divorce can be performed straightforwardly. The
respondents of the NFRJ dataset are not lawyers; they are the general public (i.e., workers
in all occupations). However, if the counter argument (i.e., the workaholic theory) were to
be correct, should it also apply to workers in other occupations than lawyers.
The analyses of the two datasets are shown below. In a nutshell, contrary to thecase of divorce lawyers, I find no positive association of divorce with income neither inthe case of lawyers in all practice areas nor in the case of workers in other occupations(even in the case of limited workers in the lawyer-like type occupations). Therefore, thepositive relationship between divorce experiences and incomes is found uniquely among
divorce lawyers.

It is the same dataset that was used in the project of Sato & Hamano, supranote 95. See supra Section III.B.1.
134

135
The survey was distributed to 10,000 sample lawyers (stratified random
sampling), and the response rate was 17.95%. 227 out of 1,795 respondents, who answered
they did not engage in law practice in 2009 or who had zero or less income in 2009, were
excluded from the sample for the purpose of my analysis.
136

See infra note 138.

The survey was distributed to 9,400 sample citizens between the ages of 28
and 72 (stratified random sampling), and the response rate was 55.35%. 3,564 out of 5,203
respondents, who answered they work at a gainful job and had more than zero income in
the previous year, are used for the purpose of my analysis (i.e., I dropped housewives andother non-workers).
137

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A. Lawyers in Other Practice Areas
The first analysis is on lawyers in all practice areas. I classify the respondents of
the JFBA dataset into two groups to compare their incomes: (a) lawyers who have anexperience of divorce (and are currently unmarried) and (b) any other lawyers. 138 There isno significant difference between the incomes of the two groups (p = 0.57, Welch’s t test
(two-sided)). The mean income of the former, those who have an experience of divorce(and with the current status of unmarried), is JPY 13.54 million (N = 34, SD = 13.47); andthe mean income of the latter, any other lawyers (i.e., most of whom have no experienceof divorce), is JPY 14.89 million (N = 1207, SD = 17.99).139 There is also no significant
difference in the annual working hours (mean =2285.98, SD = 818.56)140 between the twogroups (p = 0.37, Welch’s t test (two-sides)), indicating that lawyers’ divorce experiences
are not associated with their working hours.
For confirmation, I also perform a multiple regression analysis of incomes (mean= JPY 14.86 million, SD = 17.88) (natural log transformed) to examine the impact ofdivorce when other major factors are controlled. I use lawyers’ divorce experience (withthe current status of unmarried) as the independent variable and other basic characteristics
including age141 (mean = 50.49, SD = 16.00, along with its squared term 142), and gender(male 80.61%, female 19.39%) as the control variables. As shown in Table A1, I find no
significant association of divorce with incomes while I find significant effects of all of thecontrol variables at the 1% level: age (along with age squared), and gender (female). 143

138
The classification is not clear-cut because the dataset does not contain the pure
information of respondents’ experience of divorce in the past. Thus, my analysis here is alittle noisy. The questionnaire asked respondents’ experience of marriage in the past. It also
asked, only to those who are currently married, the occupation of respondents’ partner. I
treated the 40 respondents, who answered yes to the former question and did not answer
the latter question, as those who have an experience of divorce (and with the current statusof unmarried). The group of any other lawyers mainly covers those who have neverexperienced a divorce, but it possibly includes, in a small proportion, those who have anexperience of divorce but currently remarried.

In the JFBA dataset survey, the respondents were asked to answer the amountthat respondents filled out in the filing of income tax report. That basically refers to theamount of revenue (i.e., sales) minus necessary expenses.
139

140

Self-reported total working hours in the year of 2009.

Six categories (intervals) for age are substituted with their intermediate value
to be converted into a continuous variable (e.g., twenties into 25 years old).
141

142
See supra note 120 for the reason of adding the squared term of age. The
findings here are still robust when running a regression without the squared term, butadding the squared term largely improves the model (e.g., the adjusted R2 increases from
0.045 to 0.131).
143
The findings are robust when the analysis is repeated with the model that
includes annual working hours as an additional control variable.

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TABLE A1: REGRESSIONS OF INCOMES OF LAWYERS IN ALL PRACTICE AREAS
Ln Income
OLS
Divorce
0.0275(0.129)Age
0.140***(0.0116)2Age-0.00139*** (0.000114)
Gender (female)-0.336*** (0.0625)
Constant
3.731***(0.272)
Observations
1,238
2
Adj R
0.117
Notes: The table shows the result of an OLS regression ofincomes (natural log of income) on major characteristics oflawyers in all practice areas. Robust standard errors inparentheses. Dataset used: Fact-finding Survey on Economic
Foundation of Attorney Practices, 2010.
*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

B. Workers in Other Occupations
Using the NFRJ dataset, I also analyze the impact of divorce on incomes in otheroccupations. I compare the incomes of the two groups: (a) workers who have an experienceof divorce in the past and (b) workers who do not. I find a rather negative influence ofdivorce on workers’ incomes. The group with a divorce experience has significantly lower
incomes (N = 341, mean = JPY 3.23 million, SD = 2.51) than the group without a divorce
experience (N = 3,159, mean = JPY 3.92 million, SD = 2.86) (p < 0.01, Welch’s t test (twosided)).144 There is no significant difference in the monthly working hours (mean = 180.17,
SD = 64.56)145 between the two groups (p = 0.52, Welch’s t test (two-sides)), suggestingthat workers’ divorce experiences are not generally associated with their working hours.
Additionally, I perform a regression analysis of incomes (mean = JPY 3.85 million,
SD = 2.84) (natural log transformed). The independent variables are respondents’ divorce
experience (9.71%) as well as currently married (76.80%) and having a child (79.24%).
The control variables are age (mean = 47.97, SD = 11.35), gender (female 44.95%), andyears of education (mean = 13.17, SD = 2.18).146 There is no significant impact of divorce
on incomes. There are also no significant effects of marriage and child while there are
significant effects of the other major characteristics (age, gender, and years of education,)at the 1% or 5% level respectively (Table A2, Column (1)). 147

144
Fourteen categories (intervals) for income are substituted with theirintermediate value to be converted into a continuous variable (e.g., from JPY 3 million toless than JPY 4 million into JPY 3.5 million). The highest category, JPY 12 million or moreis substituted with JPY 12.5 million, presuming it has the same distance as the preceding
interval.

Self-reported average working hours on a working day are multiplied by thecurrent working days per month to calculate the respondents’ monthly working hours.
145

146
The highest schools that the respondents attended are converted into years ofeducation they received (i.e., a continuous variable): junior high 9, high school 12,
vocational college 14, two-year college/technical college 14, university (four-year
undergraduate) 16, university (six year undergraduate)/graduate school 18.
147
The findings are still robust when the analysis is repeated with an additional
control variable, the monthly working hours.

Saito49

Furthermore, I perform the same analyses with the limited workers who are in thesimilar type of occupations as lawyer (i.e., the specialized and technical type occupations).
In the NFRJ dataset, all of the respondents’ occupations are categorized into seven types(self-selected by the respondents), and one of the types is the specialized and technical type(e.g., physician, lawyer, teacher, engineer, nurse, writer, designer, editor and etc.).148
However, the qualitative features of the results within the specialized and technical typeoccupations are still similar to the case of all occupations. There remains no positive impact
of divorce on incomes. Actually, there is a negative impact when comparing the twogroups: specialized and technical type workers with and without a divorce experience. The
mean income of those whom with an experience of divorce is JPY 4.08 million (N = 50,
SD = 2.62) while that of those whom without the experience is JPY 5.14 million (N = 603,
SD = 2.93) (p < 0.01, Welch’s t test (two-sided)). There is no significant difference in themonthly working hours between the two groups (p = 0.80, Welch’s t test (two-sides)). Then,
Column (2) in Table A2 presents the result of a multiple regression with the same variables
as the case of whole workers; there is no significant effect of divorce (as well as marriage
and child) on incomes.149
TABLE A2: REGRESSIONS OF INCOMES IN OTHER OCCUPATIONS(1)(2)
Ln Income
Ln IncomeAll Occupations
Lawyer-like Occupations
OLS
OLS
Divorce0.00769 (0.0451)-0.0998(0.113)
Marriage-0.0639(0.0398)-0.0518(0.0882)Child-0.00516 (0.0382)
0.0855(0.0792)
Age
0.00245** (0.00116)
0.00408(0.00263)
Gender (female)-1.014*** (0.0266)-0.714*** (0.0655)
Years of education
0.0943*** (0.00583)
0.0789*** (0.0144)
Constant
0.159(0.107)0.311(0.261)
Screened by occupations
No
Yes
Observations
3,467
650
Adj R20.378
0.248
Notes: Columns (1) and (2) show the results of OLS regressions of incomes (natural log ofincome) on major characteristics of workers. Samples in Column (1) include workers in all
occupations. Samples in Column (2) are limited to lawyer-like workers, who are in the“specialized and technical type” occupations. Robust standard errors in parentheses.
Dataset used: National Family Research of Japan 2008 (NFRJ08).
*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

148
Other six types are: administrative type; clerical and marketing type; sales andservice type; physical labor type; agriculture, forestry and fisheries type; and others.

The findings are still robust when an additional control variable, the monthly
working hours, is added in the model; the effects of divorce, marriage, and child are notsignificant while the effects of all the control variables (including age) are significant at the
1% level.
149