Lateraling to Japanese big law / in-house legal job from a civil law EU country

Hi all,

There's been some earlier discussions in this subreddit about working in Japan as a foreign-qualified lawyer and based on the discussions, usually you have a best shot by:

• Graduating from a top school with top grades, preferably from a common law country
• Working in a big law firm for a few years in corporate/m&a
• Getting N1+ Japanese
• Lateraling / recruiting into a law firm or in-house role in Japan

My situation:

• Graduated from the best law school in my civil law country
• Currently work in M&A in a V15 big law firm with a local branch in my country
• Worked at MBB before hopping over to law
• N1 Japanese
• Exchange semester at a top Japanese uni

In terms of "prestige signaling" I assume that I am more than set with my MBB and big law resume, but my worry is that I would need a common law qualification to break into big law in Japan despite this.

Currently I think these would be my options:

1. My first plan is to try to get an internal transfer through my firm to the Tokyo office
2. Try to lateral recruit to a big law m&a firm/team or in-house role in Japan with 2-3yrs PQE from a civil law country
   1. If this doesn't work, plan B could be to just recruit for MBB again as I am eligible for rehire
3. Study and sit for the UK SQE to dual-qualify in England & Wales
4. Do a LLM or 2-year JD in a top US law school and sit the NY bar to get common law qualified on paper and then try to break into big law in Japan
5. Do a LLM in Japan and try to network and recruit into big law in Japan

I know there's a lot of common law lawyers here and working in Japan, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts especially about the civil law aspect when working in corporate/m&a and recruiting for roles in Japan.

Thanks!