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The New Japanese Law Schools: Putting The Professional Into Legal Education, James Maxeiner, Keiichi Yamanaka

All Faculty Scholarship

In April 2004, more than sixty law schools began operation in Japan. Legal education, previously treated as a combination of undergraduate education in law and extra-university training in professional skills, will now be concentrated in new professional law schools. The reforms of Japanese legal education are intended both to produce more attorneys in a nation that has a shortage of legally trained professionals, and to help increase the role of law in Japanese society generally.

In order for Japan's new Jaw schools to achieve their educational objectives, they must successfully address a host of conceptual, pedagogical and organizational challenges. Foremost …

The Rule Of Law In The Reform Of Legal Education: Teaching The Legal Mind In Japanese Law Schools, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

• a. The Rule of Law is at the heart of the present legal reform.
• b. There is an international consensus about basic elements of the Rule of Law.
• c. Legal methods are central to the Rule of Law. But different legal methods are used to realize the Rule of Law.
• d. Teaching legal methods, i.e., teaching to think like a lawyer, is at the heart of that which is professional in legal education.
• e. The present legal reform invites Japanese law schools to teach legal methods.