RULES EASED FOR FOREIGN LAWYERS Global business boosts Japan’s need for legal advice
By C Bryan Jones
For decades, foreign lawyers wishing to practice in Japan have found their hands tied in one way or another. Years of work to encourage change—by the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ), the Gaiben Kyokai (the Foreign Lawyers Association of Japan), and others—coupled with the Japan’s evolving needs on the world stage has resulted in changes, several of which took effect earlier this year. Foreign lawyers had been forbidden to practice in Japan since the early 1950s, with the exception of a number who had come here soon after World War II and were grandfathered in with a special license. Starting in the 1980s, foreign lawyers working for Japanese law firms were active in pressing Japan to allow them to practice their home-country law. John Kakinuki and Bob Grondine were active in the effort for decades, working to get the Embassy of the United States, Tokyo, and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to apply government-to-government pressure, as well as from within the Japanese bar associations.
JAMES LAWDEN Senior counsel Weerawong Chinnavat & Partners
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THE ACCJ JOURNAL
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LEGAL SERVICES COMMITTEE The ACCJ was involved in many of these efforts. Chris Jacobsen established the Legal Services Committee and, through various eras, has helped guide those efforts through various leadership roles. In 1987, the initial regime was put into place to open Japan to registered foreign lawyers (gaiben), though it included severe restrictions:
Registration as a gaiben required five years’ experience in the home jurisdiction ■ The foreign firm’s name could not be used in the office’s name ■ Advice on third-country laws could not be given ■ Association with Japanese bengoshi was prohibited ■
Notably, the USTR official who negotiated the opening, Glen Fukushima, later became an ACCJ president. Additional changes were accomplished following energetic lobbying from the likes of the late Grondine and Kakinuki in 1997, when the law was updated to permit gaiben firms and bengoshi to establish joint enterprises. These were allowed to advise on Japanese legal issues relating to international matters, or those questions involving international clients were involved. The five years’ foreign experience was reduced to three years, of which two had to be spent outside Japan, but not necessarily in the home jurisdiction. This was progress, but it still did not level the playing field. Matters governed by Japanese law are reserved for the bengoshi— so Japanese lawyers only—and could not be handled within a joint enterprise, between foreign and Japanese lawyers. And then there was still the matter of cumbersome naming requirements for joint enterprises.
