I've been updating an undergraduate lecture on law and the legal system in Japan. One of the topics is the 'reluctant litigant' debate - i.e. why is there less civil litigation in Japan than in some other countries (though not all)? Recent articles and working papers discuss the problems that reform of legal education has run into in Japan - meaning that fewer candidates are passing the Bar Exam than envisaged when legal reform was put in train in 2001. At that time, the idea was to have 3000 people a year passing, but for several years, the number has been 2000 (still four times as many as
20 years ago, of course). A number of recent articles and working papers suggest that among the main reasons for the apparent scaling down of ambitions has been opposition to further expansion from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren). These analyses tend to present opposition from Nichibenren as ostensibly stemming from concerns about decreasing quality of those passing the Bar Exam, but imply that perhaps this may ultimately be less important than 'conservatism' among lawyers worried about increased competition among lawyers (and thus poorer livelihoods).

I happen to have a friend who is a lawyer (bengoshi) outside the big urban centres (but not in the sticks - a provincial town), and see him most years. The last few years, we have usually discussed this issue a bit, and he always maintains that there simply isn't enough work for new lawyers to get jobs or at least a good living; thus, significant numbers of those who pass the Bar Exam simply can't find jobs or at least not good jobs. He currently has a young lawyer working in his office part-time because this person cannot find a full-time position in a legal office; and he has recently reduced his clerical staff by one person because of lack of work. As it happens, his own daughter has a strong interest in going to graduate Law School and becoming a lawyer, but he is not encouraging her for this reason. This makes me wonder whether the arguments of the papers I am reading are really fair to Nichibenren. Might it be true that there isn't enough work to support a further significant increase in lawyers (bengoshi)? If so, what might the reasons be?
For many years it has been argued by John Haley, Ginsburg and Hoetker, and others that the Japanese would be ready to go to law if there were more lawyers and if legal procedures were reformed in certain ways.
Now there are more lawyers, but (according to my
friend) not enough work. So is this a problem of unreformed legal procedures? if not, what is the problem? (Or, is my friend simply badly informed?)

Peter Cave
Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SALC, University of Manchester
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/