{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03046594982078853, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0062724014336917565, 'mean_word_length': 4.817708333333333, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Emergence of Large Law Firms in Japan: Impact on Legal Professional Ethics

Throughout the six decades after the end of the World War II until very recently, Japan had only a very small population of fully-fledged legal professionals,1 despite the country’s dramatic economic development. As will be discussed in more detail below, the law profession in Japan was characterised not only by the small number of lawyers (bengoshi), but also by their limited scope of practice, and the non-existence of large law firms. However, recent years have seen the emergence of large commercial law firms. Galanter and Palay explained the growth of large law firms in the United States by reference to “a dynamic of exponential growth” resulting from firms’ choice of a governance model based on “promotion-topartnership”.2 This theory, categorised by Aronson as a “supply-side” theory,3 does not seem able to explain the emergence of large law firms in Japan. As will be discussed below, these large law firms achieved substantial expansion in a very short period of time, mostly by merging.4 Legal Ethics, Volume 11, No. 2