ABSTRACT
Monumental judicial restructuring has recently swept Japan in an effort to remove institutional impediments to the court system and make the legal system more accessible, user-friendly and transparent. Japan has created a jury system, decreased filing fees, sought means to reduce court delays, revolutionized legal education by creating US-modeled law schools, substantially revised codes and court rules, further opened its markets to foreign attorneys and instituted many other systematic improvements. Except for the Meiji Revolution and post-World War II reconstruction eras, Japan’s legal system has never seen this degree of extensive reform. This chapter discusses the monumental changes to the legal system and analyzes the successes and failure of such changes.
