ABSTRACT
Japan has often been described as a developed country whose laws and legal system play a limited role in its society (see Miyazawa 2001:118). The scarcity of lawyers1 is one of the factors contributing to this situation. Despite the small number of lawyers in Japan, the legal profession has played an active role in facilitating the development of a civil society in the country by attempting to act as “a watchdog of the state” (Feeley and Miyazawa 2007). Their efforts, however, have been only partially successful (Feeley and Miyazawa 2007:152, 185), in part because their extremely small number (Feeley and Miyazawa 2007:185) affects the accessibility of legal services to the public. This is particularly true in remote and rural regions. The paucity of lawyers has led to extremely uneven geographical distribution of the profession throughout the country.2 The justice system reform movement which began in the late 1990s led to a governmental agenda of extensive reform to the legal system in Japan. This justice system reform (also known as the judicial reform) included a substantial increase in the number of legal professionals (lawyers, judges, and prosecutors), which prima facie should have facilitated a more even distribution of lawyers and, accordingly, greater accessibility to legal services. This chapter will discuss how economic development has led to the justice
system reform movement, how reform has supported or facilitated the growth in commercial legal practice, and how this growth has impacted the accessibility of legal services. The chapter will then conclude with analysis of future prospects for law and lawyers in Japan.
