Japan Expecting Flood of New Lawyers

The AP reports:

In past years, 25-year-old law school graduate Hiroyuki Ichikawa would have been facing an almost impossible task _ a bar exam with a 97 percent failure rate. Now, his chances are closer to 50-50.

In the most sweeping reform of Japan's legal system since World War II, the doors are opening wide for a flood of new lawyers, prosecutors and judges to handle criminal and civil cases in an increasingly litigious society.

Experts say the reforms are long overdue and underscore a big shift in social attitudes that is forcing Japan to change its longstanding policy of keeping the number of lawyers low and the public out of the courts.

"People are beginning to take more and more of their troubles to court," said Hideaki Kubori, a corporate lawyer and a professor at Omiya Law School outside Tokyo. "There are just not enough lawyers."

Japan has roughly 22,000 lawyers _ one for every 5,790 people, compared with one for every 268 in the U.S. Under the old bar exam, to be scrapped in 2011, fewer than 1,500 people are allowed to pass every year. In the United States, with about twice Japan's population, the number is closer to 75,000.

We say let the market decide.