Japanese Lawyers’ Careers Through the Lens of Gender

This chapter examines lawyers’ careers through a gender lens. There is a significant numerical gender disparity in within the Japanese legal community. Fewer than 20% of Japanese lawyers were women when this survey was conducted. A gender analysis of career paths from first through third jobs reveals that for older generations, up to the 59th legal apprenticeship cohort, the income gap between men and women tends to widen between first and third jobs. For younger generations, after the 60th legal apprenticeship cohort, income disparities also tended to widen throughout affiliation between first and second law firm jobs, although less significantly than for their predecessors. Additionally, no such gender disparity in earnings was found on the part of in-house lawyers. These analyses suggest that going forward, many women lawyers will take in-house jobs, even as the gender gap at law firms slowly shrinks, and that law firms are expected to try to create more attractive work environments in response, albeit likely only gradually.