Whither Legal Scholarship in Japan?

Abstract:     
The establishment of the professional law schools in Japan has generated conditions for a perfect storm that may devastate legal scholarship. First, the current generation of law scholars are so burdened by teaching and administration for the new law schools that it has become difficult for them to produce their own scholarship. Second, these burdens are impairing law professors’ ability to mentor new scholars. Finally, the academic track graduate law programs are attracting fewer among first tier of talent. Many of the best and brightest potential scholars are instead enrolling in the new professional law school programs.

Scholarship generates the intellectual foundation of the law. As the great pedagogical theorist Paulo Friere said: “I do research so as to know what I do not yet know and to communicate and proclaim what I discover.” If legal scholars in Japan cease to generate creative empirical and theoretical analysis of the law and society, a weakened ability to understand and report on the present will imperil the future.

This paper portrays the dynamics in legal education in Japan generating the current circumstances, considers the attending risks for the future, and aims to offer valuable policy reform suggestions.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 18

Keywords: Legal scholarship, Japanese legal education, legal education reform, legal knowledge, comparative legal education, hōkadaigakuin, East Asian Law and Society

working papers series