White Paper on Attorneys 2014

Full Text (PDF;1.5MB)

Feature 1
Attorneys and Protection of the Rights of the Child

Chapter 1 Increasing Attorneys’ Roles ... 1

I.	The Children’s Representative System	.	1
1. Outline of the Children’s Representative System	.	1
2. Attorneys as Children’s Representatives	.	1
(1) The Necessity and Roles of Children’s Representatives	.	1

Chapter 2 Defense Activities in Juvenile Cases ... 2

I.	Changes in the Number of Juvenile Probation Cases (at Family Courts) and the Proportion of Cases in which Attendants are Present	.	3

Feature 2
Disaster Reconstruction and the Role of Attorneys

Chapter 1 Footsteps of the JFBA and other Japanese Bar Associations in Assisting in Disaster Recovery ... 4

I.	Process of the JFBA’s Disaster Recovery Support Activities	.	4
1. The Eruption of Mt. Unzen-Fugen	.	4
2. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake	.	4
3. The Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Earthquake and Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake	.	5
4. The Great East Japan Earthquake	.	5

Chapter 2 JFBA Activities for the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant Accident ... 7

I.	Report on JFBA Support Activities	.	7
1. Main Activities in relation to Support for Affected People
(i) Legal Consultations	.	7
(ii) Legislative Proposal Activities	.	7
(iii) Activities for Relief for Victims of the Nuclear Power Plant Accident	.	7
(iv) Regarding the Reconstruction of Victims’ Lives	.	8

Part 1
Current Situation of Attorneys and Other Legal Professions

Chapter 1 Population of Attorneys ... 11

I.	The Japan Federation of Bar Associations and the Number of Attorneys	.	11
II.	Constitution According to Age	.	13

Chapter 2 The Number of Populations relating to Legal Professionals ... 14

I.	The Status of the Number of Applicants for Law Schools and Enrollment of People	.	14
II.	The Status of Successful Bar Examination Candidates	.	15
1. Pass Rate of New Bar Examination	.	15
III.	The Number of Legal Apprentices who Have Completed Legal Training per Chosen Profession	.	17
IV.	Comparison of the Total Number of Lawyers, Judges, and Public Prosecutors with those of Foreign Countries	.	19
1. The Number of People per Lawyer (Cross-country Comparison)	.	19
2. The Number of People per Judge (Cross-country Comparison)	.	20
3. The Number of People per Public Prosecutor (Cross-country Comparison)	.	21
4. The Number of People per Legal Professional (Cross-country Comparison)	.	22
V.	Changes in Populations of Other Legal Professions	.	25

Chapter 3 Mergers of Law Offices and the Current Situation of Legal Professional Corporations ... 26

I.	The Number of Attorneys in Law Offices	.	26
II.	Current Situation of Legal Professional Corporations	.	28
1.The Number of LPCs	.	28
2.Size of Legal Professional Corporations	.	29

Chapter 4 Current Situation of Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi ("Registered Foreign Lawyers") ... 30

I.	Changes in the Number of Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi	.	30
II.	Registration of Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi (Registered Foreign Lawyers)	.	31
III.	Situations regarding Alliances with Foreign Law Joint Enterprises	.	32
IV.	The Number of Foreign Lawyers Employed by Attorneys and Legal Professional Corporations	.	34
1.By Nationality	.	34
2.By Home Jurisdiction	.	35
V.	World Law Firms and Their Entry into the Japanese Market	.	36

Part 2
Activities of Attorneys

Chapter 1 Criminal Advocacy Activities ... 37

Section 1 Duty Attorney and Court-Appointed Attorney Systems		.	37
I.	Outline of Duty Attorney and Court-Appointed Attorney Systems	.	37
II.	Current Situations of Duty Attorneys (Toban Bengoshi)	.	38
III.	Changes in the Number of Duty Attorney Requested Cases, Appointed Cass and Criminal Suspect Defense Aid Cases	.	39
Section 2 The Status of Defense Attorneys Involvement in the Overall Criminal Cases		.	40
I.	The Status of Court-Appointed Attorney Contracts and the Number of Defendants with Court-Appointed Attorneys	.	40
II.	Changes in the Percentage of Retaining Criminal Defense Counsel (after Indictment) (Court-Appointed and Privately Retained) at District Courts	.	41
III.	Changes in the Percentage of Retaining Criminal Defense Counsel (after Indictment) (Court-Appointed and Privately Retained) at Summary Courts	.	41
IV.	Changes in the Percentage of Defendants Retaining Criminal Defense Counsel (after Indictment) (Court-Appointed and Privately Retained) at High Courts	.	42
Section 3 The Lay Judge System		.	43
I.	Cases Determined by Lay Judges	.	43
II.	Actual Practice of Lay Judge Trials	.	45
1. The Number of Persons Who Have Been Subjected to Saiban-in (Lay Judges) Trials and Have Been Finalized	.	45
2. Comparison of the Average Period Taken for Court Deliberations and the Average Period of the Pretrial Conference Procedure (by confession and denial), etc.	.	46

Chapter 2 Activities in Civil and Other Lawsuits ... 49

Section 1 Civil Lawsuits		.	49
I.	Attorneys’ Involvement in Ordinary Civil Lawsuits before District Courts	.	49
II.	Attorneys’ Involvement in Ordinary Civil Lawsuits before Summary Courts	.	51
III.	Changes in the Percentage of Appointed Attorneys in Ordinary Second Instance Trials (before High Courts)	.	52
Chapter 3 Expansion of Attorneys’ Activities		.	53
I.	Current Situation of In-house Attorneys	.	53
1. Changes in the Number of In-house Attorneys	.	53
2. Public Officers with Fixed Terms	.	54
II.	Diet Members and Head of Local Governments Registered as Attorneys	.	55

Part 3
Activities of the JFBA and Local Bar Associations

Chapter 1 Autonomy of Attorneys ... 56

Section 1 Complaints and Dispute Conciliations		.	56
I.	Complaints against Attorneys	.	56
II.	Dispute Conciliation	.	57
1. Number of Dispute Conciliation Cases Newly Received	.	57
2. Handling of Dispute Conciliation Cases (All Bar Associations)	.	57
Section 2 Disciplinary System for Attorneys and its Operation		.	58
I.	Summary of the Disciplinary System for Attorneys	.	58
1. Request for Discipline	.	58
2. Investigation by Disciplinary Enforcement Committee	.	58
3. Examination by Disciplinary Actions Committee	.	58
4. Filing of an Objection, etc.	.	58
5. Public Notice by the Official Gazette, etc.	.	59
II.	Statistics Regarding Disciplinary Actions	.	61
1. Changes in the Number of Newly Accepted Requests for Disciplinary Actions (All Bar Associations)	.	61
2. Number of Requests for Disciplinary Action and Details of Handling the Requests (All Bar Associations)	.	62
3. Percentage of Disciplinary Actions (All Bar Associations)	.	63
(1) Percentages of Cases with Disciplinary Actions out of All Requests for Disciplinary Actions	.	63
(2) Changes in Percentage of Members with Disciplinary Actions	.	63
III.	Operation of the Disciplinary System	.	64
1. Cases Handled by Disciplinary Enforcement Committees of Bar Associations and the JFBA	.	64
(1) Bar Associations	.	64
(2) JFBA	.	64
2. Processing Cases at Disciplinary Actions Committees of Bar Associations and the JFBA	.	65
(1) Bar Associations	.	65
(2) JFBA	.	65
i. Objections	.	65
ii. Appeals	.	65
3. Processing Cases at the JFBA Board of Discipline Review	.	66
IV.	The Flow and Current Situation of Disciplinary Procedure	.	67

Chapter 2 The JFBA's Activities involving Human Rights Redress ... 68

Section 1 The Operation of the Human Rights Redress System		.	68
I.	Procedures for Human Rights Redress System	.	68
II.	The Number of Human Rights Redress Cases (by Category)	.	70
Section 2 Current Situations regarding the Retrial Request Cases Supported by the JFBA		.	71
I.	Current Retrial Request Cases Supported by the JFBA	.	71
II.	Achievement by the JFBA for its Support on Retrial Request Cases	.	71

Chapter 3 International Activities of the JFBA ... 73

Section 1 International Human Rights Activities		.	74
I.	Activities at the United Nations (UN)	.	74
II.	Activities Related to the UN and UN Human Rights Bodies	.	74
Section 2 International Exchange Activities		.	75
I.	Membership of International Organizations	.	75
II.	MOUs with Overseas Bar Organizations	.	75
Section 3 International Cooperation		.	77
I.	JICA Long-Term Experts Achievement	.	77
II.	Past and Current JFBA Assistance Projects for Bar Associations in Developing Countries (by Country)	.	79
Section 4 Overseas Visiting Fellow Program and Support for Working in International Organizations		.	81
I.	JFBA Overseas Visiting Fellow Program	.	81
II.	Past Overseas Visiting Fellows	.	81
Section 5 Support for Working in International Organizations		.	83
I.	Support for JFBA Members Interested in Working in International Organizations	.	83
II.	Other Support	.	83

Part 4
Comprehensive Legal Support and Judiciary-Related Budget

Chapter 1 Japan Legal Support Center (Ho-terasu) ... 84

Section 1 Outline of the Japan Legal Support Center (Ho-terasu)		.	84
I.	Ho-terasu	.	84
II.	Scope of Operations of Ho-terasu)	.	84
III.	Entrusted Support Operations	.	85
1. Support Operations Entrusted by the JFBA	.	85

White Paper on Attorneys 2014

Contents