Stratification or Diversification? 2011 Survey of Young Lawyers in Japan
in Setsuo Miyazawa et al., East Asia’s Renewed Respect for the Rule of Law in the 21st Century: The Future of Legal and Judicial Landscapes in East Asia Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2015
18 Pages Posted: 20 May 2015
Date Written: March 13, 2015
Abstract
Inspired by the Chicago study of urban lawyers and the After the JD project in the United States, a team of scholars led by Setsuo Miyazawa has conducted repeated cross-sectional surveys of Japanese lawyers licensed in 2009. They conducted the first survey in 2011 and the second survey in 2014. This paper presents some of the findings in the 2011 survey, particularly on specialization, income, work environment (large firms vs. small municipalities), prestige of practice areas, and impact of law schools from which lawyers graduated. While graduates of the University of Tokyo Law School clearly have advantage in joining large firms in Tokyo, this paper concludes that it is too early to say that a stratification like that among urban lawyers in the United States is appearing in Japan, because prestige of practice areas is multidimensional in Japan, and practices for individual clients are still respected for their “social significance.”
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