Historically Japanese attorneys were understood to function outside the government, and compared to judges and prosecutors they occupied a lower position but one with the potential to be more independent. The government control exerted prior to and during WWII had a long-lasting impact on Japanese attorneys, motivating the bar to retain its independence despite high costs over many years. The prioritization of independence is particularly evident in the somewhat unusual adoption of mandatory ‘public interest’ activities by the larger bar associations in Tokyo and other major cities. The chapter examines the process of making and revising mandatory rules, and argues that the divergence of views regarding what constitutes ‘public interest activities’ suggests that mandatory rules serve multiple purposes, not necessarily related to access to justice. The chapter also suggests a four-part typology to examine the different public interest activities which attorneys in Japan carry out: (1) professional work, paid and unpaid, undertaken for those unable to afford it; (2) criminal and civil legal aid paid for with public funds; (3) activities for bar associations; and (4) other activities recognized by bar associations as public interest activities even though they do not utilize legal skills.

Court reform is on trial in Japan and two things can be said about the verdict: it will take at least several more years to make a sound assessment of the recent changes, and when the conclusion comes, it will be a hung jury, because different people expect different things from the reforms – and they are not compatible.

INTRODUCTION

Thirty years ago Lawrence Friedman introduced the concept of “legal culture,” and it quickly became a major organizing concept in sociolegal studies. Inspired by the work of Willard Hurst, Gabriel Almond, and Sidney Verba, he argued that law is best understood as a system of social forces, one that both produces and responds to these forces. He invited scholars to embrace the concept of “legal culture,” move beyond their traditional concern with doctrine, and instead explore the social forces that give rise to law and legal change. He was particularly interested in forces that give rise to legal change and, in turn, the impact law has on society. It was broadly an appeal for empirical inquiry sources and the effects of the law.

To facilitate systematic inquiry Friedman distinguished between external legal culture and internal legal culture. The former includes those social factors “constantly at work on the law” and those “parts of general culture – customs, opinions, ways of doing and thinking – that bend social forces toward or away from the law.” Internal legal culture includes the distinct culture of legal professionals and allied actors who work within the legal system. According to Friedman, although law is far from an autonomous self-regulating system, nevertheless those few specialists who administer it and possess expert knowledge of it are far from passive actors responding to uncontrollable social forces. In reacting to these forces, they have, within limits, the capacity to shape and refine them.