A keen tennis player and fan, Mak is always to be found in London during June so that he can fit in a trip to Wimbledon around his business in the City. His links with London were first forged in 1972, when he decided to leave the Japanese law firm at which he was working, Braun Moriya, to study for a diploma in shipping law at University College. It was O'May who gave Makoto his abbreviated name so he became known as Mak - a Scottish Japanese. Over the last thirty years, Japan has certainly become more litigious, but the majority of people still prefer to settle. He was the only shipping partner at the beginning but has since trained a team of maritime lawyers which includes the first full-time woman shipping lawyer in Japan, who has recently joined the firm as a new associate.
Competition is fierce for law graduates.
Twenty to twenty-five thousand hopefuls take the Japanese bar exam every year for only 750 designated places. However, only a small percentage end up specialising in shipping and so there are only about thirty to forty maritime lawyers in the whole of Japan. Japanese culture still dictates that the majority of cases settle outside of court. Although the current crisis in the financial markets naturally leads to more litigation, especially trade and property disputes, any culture changes only one step at a time and usually it is a slow process over a period of years. The court system in Japan works on three levels.