Senior Professor Setsuo Miyazawa Returns to UC Law SF to Teach Japanese Law

After a three-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Senior Professor Setsuo Miyazawa returned to the UC Law SF campus to resume teaching his well-known course on the Japanese legal system.  The course presents students with insights on the “role of law, lawyers, and the judicial system in Japanese society from a socio-legal perspective.”  Topics  range from Tokugawa-era legal structures to the current state of the legal profession and legal education in modern Japan, and students write in-depth research papers on a Japanese law topic of their choice.

Professor Miyazawa is a senior legal sociologist and one of the world’s leading scholars of the Japanese legal system.  He has taught at UC Law SF as a visiting professor since 2008, and this is the final year he will offer his Japanese law course at the law school.   He co-founded the UC Law SF East Asian Legal Studies Program in 2015, and he serves as Senior Director of what is now the Center for East Asian Legal Studies (CEALS).

Professor Miyazawa has organized an annual symposium on Japanese law since 2012.  This year’s symposium, to be held at the law school on September 22, will focus on Japan’s open government information movement and feature leading experts from Japan and the United States.   UC Law SF will recognize Professor Miyazawa’s many contributions to the law school and the field at this timely symposium.

Students congregated in Kayne Hall the first week of classes to listen to Professor Miyazawa’s introduction to the course and hear from three guest speakers.

First among the speakers was UC Law SF’s International Law Librarian, Vincent Moyer, who presented students with a comprehensive Japanese Law Research Guide, and insights into online sources, books, legal blogs, and more.

Second was Dylan Fackler, a current 2L at the law school, who shared his experience as an intern at a Japanese law firm in Tokyo over the summer. He spoke of the cultural differences between the legal profession in Japan and the United States, highlighting the unique qualities of the workplace setting and customs in Japan, including the concept of work intertwining with social life, firm and company community, meeting and client interaction etiquette, and even the hectic Tokyo subway commute.

The third speaker was UC Law SF ‘14 alumnus Daigo Takahashi. He is currently a corporate associate at Morrison Foerster’s San Francisco office. Prior to joining the San Francisco office, Mr. Takahashi worked in MoFo’s Tokyo office.  Last year, Mr. Takahashi spoke to the UC Law SF community on job opportunities for legal professionals in Japan. He highlighted avenues though which UC Law SF students could explore employment opportunities in Japan and shared the current state of demand for American lawyers in the country.  He also spoke of pressing legal issues that require the expertise of American lawyers in Japan, specifically in-bound and out-bound mergers and acquisitions of companies.

With CEALS gearing up for its second year of operation as a research center, we welcome Professor Miyazawa’s return to campus with great excitement and gratitude!