New system of legal education in japan
Law and Politics in Japan
Development of a New Legal Training System
In July 1999, the Justice System Reform Council was established in order to "clarify the role to be played by justice in Japanese society in the 21st century" Its main role is to examine and deliberate fundamental measures necessary for the realization of a justice system easier to utilize, measures necessary for participation by the people in the justice system like the Saiban'In, measures necessary to strengthen the functions of the legal profession and other reforms of the justice system, as well as improvements in the infrastructures. The development of a new legal training system was so one of the major issues.
According to the prior legal training system (see appendix) , the legal education was conducted primarily during the undergraduate level and used to mainly focus on theoretical knowledge with a lack of practical experiences and specialization. In Japan, there're about one hundred universities which have law faculty. Around 45,000 students enrol for law studies every year. Unfortunately, most of them spend their entire career in law academies and rare are those who can experience law practice, for example legal training programs which usually take place at the Legal Training and Research Institute. Actually a few students get legal profession and all the others go to companies after graduate. The fact that the average of applicants who passed the Bar examination every year didn't exceed 5%, almost 500 people, shows that the previous training system was outdated. One of the main objectives of the Council is to enable 3000 student to pass the exam every year within 2010. Indeed the Japanese legal system wants to increase the number of legal professionals in comparison to the other nations. For example, in the US there are currently 1 million of lawyer, in France 47,000 and in Japan only 24,130. We have to remind that the