Chapter 8: THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF STASIS AND CHANGE IN JAPANESE LEGAL EDUCATION.

This chapter examines the historical roots of stasis and change in Japanese legal education. Legal education in Japan is now being re-examined and is likely to be overhauled within a decade. This reexamination forms part of a more comprehensive scheme of restructuring the judicial system and the legal profession as a whole, proposed by the Judicial Reform Council. Presently in Japan, legal education is part of the undergraduate curriculum. There are about thirty law faculties or departments housed in national or municipal universities. In addition, there are sixty-five private university law faculties. The total number of undergraduate students studying law at those faculties and departments is about 45,000 per year. A typical law faculty is composed of a department of political science as well as a department of law and offers courses in economics as well as political science. It also offers courses in what is called the basic science of law, which includes foreign laws, legal history, legal philosophy and legal sociology. Generally speaking, major law faculties attract the best of the students who are oriented to social studies and the humanities, who wish to attain leadership positions in government, business or law. Above all, the faculties of national universities have traditionally considered themselves responsible for educating good bureaucrats who play principal roles in national policy making, administration and legislation.