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