Gatekeepers: A Comparative Critique of Admission to the Legal Profession and Japan's New Law Schools

Kent Anderson, Kent Anderson, Trevor Ryan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Introduction Legal education in Japan has been fundamentally reconstituted in the first decade of the twenty-first century.1 These changes are situated within both international trends and far-reaching domestic administrative and judicial reforms. To date, the literature concerning Japan’s legal education reforms has focused on the most visible change: the repositioning of graduate law schools (hōka daigakuin) as the central institution in the training of Japan’s legal profession (in the narrow sense of judges, attorneys and prosecutors). In the English literature, there is consensus that retention of the ‘bottleneck’ entry examination (shihō shiken) governing entry to the apprenticeship/practical phase of training (‘Bar Examination’ is the closest English equivalent) is a grave threat to the fragile infancy of the 74 new law schools.2 This concern exposes a deeper dynamic about who controls admission to the legal profession and by what means.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLegal Education in Asia: globalization, change and contexts
EditorsStacey Steele and Kathryn Taylor
Place of PublicationAbingdon, UK and New York, USA
PublisherRoutledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Pages45-67
Volume1
Edition1st
ISBN (Print)9780415494338
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010

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