Posted on 08/21/2006 1:55:46 PM PDT by george76
In sweeping legal reform, increasingly litigious Japan expecting flood of new lawyers...
In past years, 25-year-old law school graduate Hiroyuki Ichikawa would have been facing an almost impossible task : a bar exam with a 97 percent failure rate. Now, his chances are closer to 50-50.
In the most sweeping reform of Japan's legal system since World War II, the doors are opening wide for a flood of new lawyers, prosecutors and judges to handle criminal and civil cases in an increasingly litigious society.
Experts say the reforms are long overdue and underscore a big shift in social attitudes that is forcing Japan to change its longstanding policy of keeping the number of lawyers low and the public out of the courts.
Hideaki Kubori, a corporate lawyer and a professor at Omiya Law School outside Tokyo. "There are just not enough lawyers."
Japan has roughly 22,000 lawyers _ one for every 5,790 people, compared with one for every 268 in the U.S.
Under the old bar exam, to be scrapped in 2011, fewer than 1,500 people are allowed to pass every year.
In the United States, with about twice Japan's population, the number is closer to 75,000.
Freshly graduated Ichikawa knows the odds will remain stacked against the defenders, and therefore wants to specialize in corporate law for now.
"I think it is impossible to make a living by becoming a criminal lawyer," he said. "There are so few incentives to become one."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Poor bastards, they will be infested with parasite shysters just like we are.
there goes the neighborhood.
A lawyer finds out he has a brain tumor, and it's inoperable - in fact, it's so large, they have to do a brain transplant. His doctor gives him a choice of available brains - there's a jar of rocket scientist brains for $10 an ounce, a jar of regular scientist brains for $15 an ounce, and a jar of lawyer brains for the princely sum of $800 an ounce. The outraged lawyer says, "This is a ripoff - how come the lawyer brains are so damned expensive?" The doctor replies, "Do you know how many lawyers it takes to get an ounce of brains?"
There are plenty of trial lawyers available in the US.
popcorn time
Could this be a good thing? Sure there are going to be sheisters, but they may be needed.
Could this be a good thing? Sure there are going to be sheisters, but they may be needed.
..eyep, just like the US, but they will be smaller and more efficient
Doogle
That's what I was thinking. We have about ten times more than we need. If the Japanese for some strange reason think they need more of the filthy parasites, send some of ours over in packing crates. I think it would be a mistake on their part, but good riddance to bad rubbish.
-ccm
They just can't catch a break, can they? Maybe they can sick this army of sheisters on Dear Leader in PROK.
What kind of society needs a lawyer for every 250 people or so ?
J-word of the day: bengoshi = lawyer
Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
And they thought being on the receiving end of atomic weapons was bad!
I would say "no", that Japan certainly doesn't need a flood of lawyers.
While I appreciate that there is a small shortage, and indeed some rules have been changed to allow judges to act also as lawyers to cover that shortage, these wholesale changes I think are unwarranted and will have the same dismal effect that such a large parasite class has had in the U.S.
This will destroy Japan more surely (but more slowly) than any atomic bomb.
In Japan, it is CRAZY how utterly impossible it is for the Average JoeMura to get a legal defense.
Even if it makes me sound like a friggin LEFTY, LOTS of good Japanese people have confessed to all sorts of crap they didn't do, just cuz they couldn't get a lawyer, or weren't afforded access to one.
Japan has exactly the OPPOSITE problem from the USA.
In many cases, if you're a foreign corporation, you just can't get legal representation of any kind. Or...you're confined to a kind of proto legal advisor.
THIS IS LONG OVERDUE.
We could trade some of our lawyers for some of their engineers.
That would help us and mess up Japan.
.
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