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 Fifteen law schools with total enrolment of 3000: is this an appropriate figure? |
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Sorimachi Your proposal requires a tremendous transfer of teaching staff from the law departments of undergraduate schools to graduate level law schools, if students begin studying law after completing four years of college work. And each law school needs, in addition to the law professors transferred from the four year colleges, assistant and associate professors as well as professors who have been practitioners - all together at least 150 staff. Do you think it is practical to expect such a number of staff members for each school?
I believe that professors currently teaching in undergraduate law departments are perfectly qualified to teach at the new law schools. In the United States, a professor of constitutional law one semester may teach patent law the next semester, learning a new area together with his students. That can't happen in Japan, because teaching staff belong to chaired faculties. A riot would breakout if a professor of constitutional law moves to another faculty and teaches civil law. The faculty system couldn't survive such flexibility.
We need real mental breakthrough. I don't particularly agree with the view that a law school teaching staff should include practitioners. What a law school does is educate and practical training can come later at different institution. Practitioners are usually not professional educators. Your proposal states that there should be fifteen law schools with total enrollment of 3000, while currently as many as 92 universities have departments of law. How do you select the universities that will open new law schools?
Fifteen is not the limit. Any university which meets the requirements established by the Ministry of Education should be entitled to open its own law school. You mean any school that satisfies the requirements in terms of faculty and facility may apply?
Yes, in a way. This is going to be a free competition among universities. Those who succeed should prosper. American law schools at one time became so numerous and some of them were criticized for a deteriorating quality of education, so an accreditation system was introduced. Can that be a sort of precedent for us?
Yes, maybe. The Ministries of Justice and Education can work together to establish an independent accrediting body, and then the graduates of accredited schools would be qualified to take the bar examination. Compared to the role played by lawyers in America, your suggested enrollment level of 3000 is far too few to satisfy the needs of a Japan heading toward globalization.
This is true. I am only entertaining 3000 as a starting figure. Obviously, the national need for legal services requires many more than that. However, we have to be careful not to overlook the possibility of quality deterioration should we get too anxious to increase the numbers too fast. With reference to your advocacy of free competition, why don't we just let as many as want to go ahead and not be limited by a figure like 3000 per year, and let them go out into the 'survival game.' .
You may be right. You said graduates of any department other than law should be eligible for law school admission. Well, we have 50,000 graduates from law departments and altogether 700,00 to 800,00 new bachelors degrees every year, whereas law school enrollment is only about 3000. Isn't the competition too severe?
Yes, bachelors of law per year total 50,000 and if only 3000 are admitted to law schools, you may think them are out of system. This is an illusion. A college level department of law will have its own independent curriculum as an educational institute. Graduates of these new departments will be equipped with more comprehensive intellectual training in what they are getting today. The Judicial Reform Council has already embarked on its deliberations and I would like to hear from you what you would like to have put on the agenda, along with your advocacy of law schools.
Nothing but to upgrade the Japanese judicial training system and, if helpful, taking a new law school system into consideration. I want members of the Council to realize that what they decide will set the course for Japan's judicial system for next half or even whole century and they must show a genuine sense of dedication to society. |
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Yukio Yanagida Mr. Yanagida was born in Toyama prefecture January 22, 1933. In 1956, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Waseda University and passed the National Bar Examination. In 1958, he received a LL.M. from the Graduate School of Waseda University. In 1960, he became a lawyer. In 1966, he received a LL.M. from Harvard Law School. In 1991, he became a Visiting Professor of Harvard Law School. He is presently a Member of the Visiting Overseers of Harvard University and Country Councilor of LAWASIA. |
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