A move to introduce a "school lawyer system" has been spreading nationwide following a fatal child abuse case in which Mia Kurihara, 10, a fourth-grade elementary school girl died in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, and her parents were arrested on suspicion of inflicting injury on her.
According to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey of a total of 67 municipalities -- 47 prefectures and 20 government-designated major cities, 14 have already adopted the system, while six others plan to introduce it in fiscal 2019.
Under the school lawyer system, lawyers mainly give advice from a third-party perspective on the front lines of schools, and in general do not act as attorneys at law for schools or boards of education. Any municipality can adopt the system, not only prefectural governments and government-designated major city governments.
In 2018, concerning a quarrel between children, the guardian of an elementary school student in Minato Ward, Tokyo, came to the school with a lawyer and told the school authorities, "I want the school to make that other student transfer to another school."
Since fiscal 2007, the ward government has discussed cases of trouble at ward-run kindergartens, elementary and junior high schools in close cooperation with lawyers' group Minato Hosokai.
This is because there has been an increasing number of cases in which the ward government struggled to cope with guardians and neighborhood residents. In fiscal 2018, 21 lawyers were giving advice to schools and kindergartens. It is practically a school lawyer system.
In the 2018 case, a lawyer in charge who had been consulted on the case by the school before the guardian came in, provided such advice as follows:
-- The school should only listen to requests from the guardian's side when they visit the school.
-- The school is not to give a prompt reply.
-- The school will prepare the content of the reply in consultation with the ward's board of education.
Since then, the lawyer has continued to give detailed advice to the school.
Finally, the guardian's side, which requested the student be transferred, agreed that the school would not transfer the student to another school nor move the student to a different class, but instead the classroom teacher and others would closely watch the students in question so that they would not quarrel again.
During the 11-year period through fiscal 2017, schools and kindergartens in the ward consulted lawyers in a total of 226 cases.
An official in charge at the ward's board of education said: "Consulting lawyers can reduce the psychological burden on teachers and others. By doing so, they become able to deal confidently with each case."
The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry does not keep comprehensive data on which municipalities nationwide make use of the school lawyer system. However, it has been carrying out a fact-finding research project on the matter since fiscal 2017.
The ministry initially envisaged having lawyers give lectures with the aim of preventing bullying on the front lines of schools and making students aware of the facts -- that if you are the first to attack someone, you will be charged with the crime of bodily injury, and if you cause someone psychological pain through bullying, you will be asked to pay compensation for damages. The ministry provided a subsidy of a total of about 3 million yen to the Mie prefectural government and the Minoo city government in Osaka Prefecture.
Since then, in debates about how to reform teachers' work style and mitigate their burdens, the roles expected of school lawyers are expected to play have been changing.
As they were expected to deal with excessive demands and complaints from guardians, the ministry offered a total of about 10 million yen in subsidies to the five prefectures of Ibaraki, Mie, Osaka, Tokushima and Oita in fiscal 2018, as a way of conducting an examination of the system, including how the prefectures cope with each legal consultation.
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