Recommended Citation
Daniel H. Foote, Four Views of Japanese Attorneys, 25 Law in Japan: An Annual 102 (1995), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/1018
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The four articles translated below appeared in a special collection entitled: Bengoshi--san Monosatari-or, A Tale of Lawyers. This collection was No. 198 in the Bessatsu Takarajma series, a series that contains such other tides as: How to Develop Brain Power (Noryoku toreningu no gijutsu, No. 41), The Court Game (Salban gemu, No. 169), and The Dark Side of Real Estate (Fudosan no ura, No. 177). As these titles ·reflect, publications in the series are aimed at the mass market. not the world of academics. A further caveat is thatr as with the majority of the articles contained in Bengoshi-san Monogatari, the four articles that appear below were written by reporters and freelance writers, not bengoshi. Moreover, these articles were not based on comprehensive surveys. Rather, they are vignettes, in some cases based on interviews with several attoneys, in other cases based on interviews and visits with just one.
As such, however, they provide fascinating glimpses into the work, lifestyles, and concerns of bengoshi. They do so from four perspectives. The first reports on a day in the life of a youngish attorney from a four-member firm based in Ginza; the second reflects the practice of an attorney who serves as a komon bengoshi (an attorney on open-ended retainer) and devotes his practice to the ongoing representation of various companies and individuals; the third examines the lives of attorneys in Shimane Prefecture, which, with only eighteen attorneys in active practice in the entire prefecture, has the fewest practicing attorneys of any prefecture in Japan; and the fourth focuses on the experiences of women attorneys.