Clinics and the Public Interest in the Reform of Japanese Legal Education

Abstract

This paper looks at the reform of Japanese law schools from the point of view of the social justice mission set by law for Japanese lawyers. Though clinical legal education is widely accepted to be a great vehicle for training lawyers oriented to public-interest work, several institutional and economic barriers exist to the implementation of such curricula in the new Japanese law schools. Tracing the development of clinical legal education and legal education reform in Japan, this paper analyzes the ways in which legal education reform was intended to advance social justice through lawyering, particularly through widespread attention to practical and clinical legal education, and what barriers schools face in achieving that goal.