I’ve been traveling through Asia for many years and Japan is my favorite country I’ve visited and I’d like to work towards moving there at some point. My last visit was in April of this year and I’ve been studying Japanese since then. I plan to continue to study and work towards being fully fluent, however many years it takes.
As the title suggests, I’m an attorney in the US and am wondering what would be some realistic job prospects for living in Japan. I specialize in complex litigation and it seems like the prospects of landing a job equivalent to that in Japan is not attainable for a foreigner for numerous reasons. I am curious if there are any other types of positions my background would be suitable for. Some type of legal consulting role for Japanese companies who do business with the US?
3 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**US lawyer chances to become a bengoshi?**
I’ve been traveling through Asia for many years and Japan is my favorite country I’ve visited and I’d like to work towards moving there at some point. My last visit was in April of this year and I’ve been studying Japanese since then. I plan to continue to study and work towards being fully fluent, however many years it takes.
As the title suggests, I’m an attorney in the US and am wondering what would be some realistic job prospects for living in Japan. I specialize in complex litigation and it seems like the prospects of landing a job equivalent to that in Japan is not attainable for a foreigner for numerous reasons. I am curious if there are any other types of positions my background would be suitable for. Some type of legal consulting role for Japanese companies who do business with the US?
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I know some US lawyers that work in Japan that do contract law for large us-based company. They are all fluent in Japanese, though.
Basically, foreign lawyers can work as a *”gaiben”* Attorneys at Foreign Law —and work as law firm associates, or as in-house counsel {up to general counsel}, without being registered with the Japanese bar.
Cool, heh?
Not really.
Foreign lawyers are treated as shitshovelers/proofreaders unless their Japanese is near native. There are more astronauts than *Western* lawyers who have passed the Japanese bar—The majority of Japanese law school grads don’t pass the bar.
Read the past r/movingtojapan threads on foreign lawyers such as:
* [**Moving to japan as a lawyer** ^/r/movingtojapan](https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/cu3nqs/moving_with_a_law_degree/)
* [**US lawyer considering moving to Japan** ^/r/movingtojapan](https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/ikgls4/us_lawyer_considering_moving_to_japan_in_a_year/)
* [**Obtaining an LLM in Japan as an American lawyer?** ^/r/movingtojapan](https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/l5wsxg/obtaining_an_llm_in_japan_as_an_american_lawyer/)
* [**Counselor trying to move** ^/r/movingtojapan](https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/zdf0zz/law_student_and_counselor_trying_to_move/)
* [**Foreigners with a law degree: any opportunities other than law firms?** ^/r/movingtojapan](https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/a7c6as/foreigners_with_a_law_degree_any_opportunities/)