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How Can Japanese Corporations Protect Confidential Information In U.S. Courts?, Masamichi Yamamoto

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

U.S. courts have seen a significant increase in the number of lawsuits involving both U.S. and Japanese corporations. In deciding these cases, U.S. courts may have to choose how to apply the attorney-client privilege to in-house lawyers retained by corporations in Japan, where the legal system and discovery rules are fundamentally different from those of the United States. U.S. courts would most likely analyze these situations under the Remy-Martin/Minolta test and recognize the attorney-client privilege only for managers of legal departments in Japanese corporations, not for other non-bengoshi (non-licensed) in-house lawyers. This will change in the near future, however, when …