Category: Japan Legal News and Analysis

Is your next Director of Operations or COO already in your BD department?
An interview with Isaac Uchiyama, EY Law Japan’s Head of Business Development and Operations, on how he seamlessly went from being a BD professional to also overseeing the operations What led you to a career in professional services business development? I was born in Japan but […]

Helping Japan Inc. expand into Thailand. An interview with Emi Rowse (Igusa)
Emi Rowse (Igusa) is a Partner with Kudun & Partners, a Thai law firm, where she heads the Japan practice. In her role she assists Japanese corporations enter the Thai market. A specialist in corporate litigation and arbitration matters, Rowse is a HK qualified lawyer who […]

Flexible legal services for businesses in Japan: An interview with Catherine O’Connell
A former in-house counsel in Japan, Catherine O’Connell is originally from New Zealand. In 2018, she founded her own law firm focused on providing flexible legal services to businesses in Japan. In this interview with Asia Law Portal, O’Connell details the inspiration that led her to […]

How pro bono lawyers are helping make the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics a reality
In this interview with Asia Law Portal, Shoichi Sugiyama explains how pro bono lawyers from the Tokyo 2020 pro bono lawyers services project are helping make the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics a reality

New legal tech company CodeLex aims to streamline the practice of law
Legal technology company CodeLex is a developer of legaltech projects as part of the Irbis Ventures (formerly ‘M Lab’) ecosystem. Incorporated in Mongolia and Singapore, and with a core team based in Ulaanbaatar, Singapore and Tokyo, CodeLex projects aim to streamline and add value to the […]

A Year of Big Changes: Latest Employment Trends in Singapore and Japan
2018 saw the biggest changes in the employment law regimes of both Singapore and Japan. Both jurisdictions have recently gone through a fundamental change to the key legislation concerning employees’ rights. This includes a wider coverage of employees who are entitled to statutory benefits, and the […]

The 2019 US landscape for Japan’s corporate investors: An interview with Frank Aquila, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell
“Japanese companies have embarked on the biggest overseas acquisition spree in more than 20 years, echoing the deal boom of the 1980s,” as Lina Saigol detailed in the Financial News yesterday. In this interview with Asia Law Portal, Frank Aquila, Partner with Sullivan & Cromwell, explains what […]

Tokyo – A City Guide for Lawyers and Legal Professionals
Tokyo, the capital of Japan is one of the largest, busiest and most populated metropolises in the world. This vibrant city is also called city of cities. You may think of it as several cities interlinked through an excellent public transport system. It also is a […]

Energy Security and Climate Change in East Asia-Trilateral Cooperation towards a Sustainable Future
China, Japan and South Korea are undergoing rapid and comprehensive transformations in developing the intelligent and sustainable use of energy and other natural resources. These changes are driven by new strategies towards energy security and climate change mitigation. Given that future China-Japan-South Korea energy cooperation will […]

NewLaw firm lexvoco enters the Japanese market
NewLaw firm lexvoco, which is based in Australia and which also operates in New Zealand, has begun operations in Japan. Lexvoco is the first NewLaw secondment business to do so. Japan has the world’s third largest economy with a GDP or 4.41 Trillion USD. Law […]

Facilitating cross-border trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific: An interview with Babita Ambekar of Duane Morris & Selvam
Babita Ambekar is Head of Duane Morris & Selvam’s India and Japan Practice Groups. She advises multinationals on transactions involving India, Indian companies on their global expansion, in Singapore and abroad. She regularly advises Japanese companies on regional and international matters and is actively involved in the […]

What are the prospects for legal startups in Japan? An interview with Tim Romero, author of DisruptingJapan.com
Tim Romero is a Tokyo-based innovator, author, and entrepreneur. He’s started several companies since coming to Japan more than 20 years ago — and he’s deeply involved in Japan’s startup community as an investor, founder and mentor. He is the author of the widely-read blog DisruptingJapan.com […]

Facilitating investment in Japan – an interview with Tokyo-based lawyer Hiroaki Tsuda
As the Japan Times reported last year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration developed an updated growth strategy calling for a doubling of the “outstanding amount of foreign direct investment in Japan to ¥35 trillion by 2020, with the government taking necessary policy steps and the […]

Tokyo Legal Startups find support and inspiration from “StartEd”
As Disrupting Japan blog author Tim Romero has outlined: “The startup scene in Japan is laying the seeds for [the country’s] next economic miracle.” And a part of that miracle may very well be Tokyo-based legal startups. Few would know more about this subject than Dublin-based lawyer Naoise Gaffney. […]

From lawyer to Tokyo startup entrepreneur: An interview with Nikola Pavesic of Justa
Elise Hu (@elisewho), reporting for NPR earlier this month, outlined how the startup scene in Japan is now beginning to gain momentum in an economy still centered around traditional companies that made it big in the latter part of the last century. The Japanese government, however, […]

Japan to outspend China on Asia infrastructure
Japan announced this week that it will lend around US$ 110 billion to help fund infrastructure development in Asia over the next five years via the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Asian Development Bank. The announcement by Japan comes amid […]

PwC poised for success in the Japanese legal market
“PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has launched a legal services arm in Japan” – as Elizabeth Broomhall (@ELBroomhall) reported last week in Legal Week. “The big four accounting firm began providing legal advice in Tokyo [in November] debuting with one partner offering local law advice and focusing on corporate and […]

Japanese law firms continue Asia expansion drive
Japan’s top law firms are continuing an Asia expansion drive. This is in an effort to assist Japanese companies in their expansion drive in the region – as well as to capture market share from high growth economies in China and the ASEAN region. In January, […]