To stem the tendency among talented people to turn away from entering the legal profession, the only thing to do is drastically review the system for fostering legal professionals.
The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry has compiled reform measures for law schools, whose applicants have been declining.
The central pillar of the measures is the establishment of a "legal profession course." The course will enable students with excellent records to complete their academic study in law in a total of five years -- three years of undergraduate legal courses at a university and two years at a law school. Under this course, students will be able to complete their study in one year less than under the present system. It will be introduced as early as the next academic year.
The course is aimed at securing students by reducing their burden in terms of tuition fees and time. Also envisioned are a scheme that would enable undergraduate students to study in advance some of the subjects to be taught at law school and the establishment of admission to law school based on recommendations.
The tuition fees at a private law school are about 1 million yen a year. Although it is indeed necessary to lessen the financial burden of students, can such a measure alone help increase the number of applicants to law schools? It should be said that this is nothing short of a stopgap measure.
Under the legal system reforms aimed at realizing a judicial system closer to the people, a dramatic increase in the need for legal services was anticipated. With emphasis on the need to produce a great number of jurists, law schools were created as core institutions to assume the responsibility for fostering them.
Yet the need has not increased as expected, and some have even said there is an excessive supply of lawyers. As this assumption has broken down, it is inevitable for the fostering system to be drastically reviewed.
Also reexamine bar exam
The decline in the number of applicants to enter law schools is serious. Applicants to law schools stood at 8,160 in the 2017 academic year, down to one-ninth of what they were in the 2004 academic year when the law school system started. Once there were as many as 74 law schools, but one school after another has shuttered and the number of law schools planning to register new students in this academic year is expected to drop to as few as 39.
The biggest factor behind the stalemate is the low percentage of applicants who pass the bar exam. The percentage of applicants who passed the bar exam upon their completion of law school was only about 20 percent last year. In contrast, the percentage of applicants who passed the bar exam without attending law school, as they had qualified to take the test by passing a preliminary examination, topped 70 percent.
It is obvious that law schools are not sufficiently fulfilling their functions.
The latest reform measures have also eliminated the goal to strive to have the percentage of new students who have no law degree at higher than 30 percent of the total at law schools. The vision of fostering jurists with diverse backgrounds without law degrees has also retreated.
Should the philosophy of the law school be retained, which attaches importance to practical education and fosters manpower who can be immediately effective, it will be necessary to review the qualifications to take the preliminary exam and the content of the bar exam.
The principle of the law school, which rules out classes aimed at preparation for the bar exam, has also been distorted.
Needless to say, students' objective is to pass the bar exam and contribute to our society as jurists. The curriculum at each and every law school should also be reconstructed to help them achieve these objectives.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, April 3, 2018)
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
