Lawyers in Rural Japan: Low Supply, Iffy Demand.

There was no inherent reason that this northern Japanese town, population 19,743, had never had a lawyer until now. It had its share of people with debts, disputes over property, wrangling over inheritances -- enough disharmony, certainly, to keep at least one lawyer busy. But Japan, in contrast to the United States, has long suffered from a shortage of lawyers, especially in the countryside. If it was not unusual for towns with five times Yakumo's population to have no lawyer, how could Yakumo hope to secure one just for itself? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]