Kay-Wah Chan

Legal malpractice lawsuits in Japan: past, present and future

ABSTRACT Until recently, Japan has been known for its small number of lawyers (bengoshi). Aggrieved clients also rarely brought lawsuits against their bengoshi for malpractice. However, in 2001, Japan embarked on a sweeping reform of its legal system. As a result, the number of bengoshi dramatically increased. However, there are claims that there has been a decline in the quality of the new generation of bengoshi and that legal malpractice lawsuits are increasing. Is this really the case and, if so, will there be a crisis in the near future? To explore these questions, this paper will analyse the factors that arguably contribute to the hitherto small number of legal malpractice lawsuits in Japan and then examine whether any of these contributory factors has changed or will change and whether such change (if any) will cause a substantial increase in legal malpractice lawsuits and a crisis in the near future.

Cooperatives in China - A Promising Player in Chinese Economy: Guest Editors' Introduction

(2014). Cooperatives in China—A Promising Player in Chinese Economy. The Chinese Economy: Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 3-7.

The Emergence of Large Law Firms in Japan: Impact on Legal Professional Ethics

Throughout the six decades after the end of the World War II until very recently, Japan had only a very small population of fully-fledged legal professionals,1 despite the country’s dramatic economic development. As will be discussed in more detail below, the law profession in Japan was characterised not only by the small number of lawyers (bengoshi), but also by their limited scope of practice, and the non-existence of large law firms. However, recent years have seen the emergence of large commercial law firms. Galanter and Palay explained the growth of large law firms in the United States by reference to “a dynamic of exponential growth” resulting from firms’ choice of a governance model based on “promotion-topartnership”.2 This theory, categorised by Aronson as a “supply-side” theory,3 does not seem able to explain the emergence of large law firms in Japan. As will be discussed below, these large law firms achieved substantial expansion in a very short period of time, mostly by merging.4 Legal Ethics, Volume 11, No. 2