By Bruce Aronson
Senior advisor at the USALI Japan Center, NYU Law adjunct professor
The U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) and Japanese Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) recently celebrated 25 years of bringing Japanese public interest lawyers to NYU as visiting scholars.
I attended the anniversary event on December 12, 2023 at the JFBA’s headquarters in Tokyo and gave a one-hour presentation about the visiting scholar program. NYU Law Professor Emeritus Frank Upham, who helped found the program, sent a congratulatory message to attendees of the event.
Most Japanese and other Asian attorneys who study at US law schools come to obtain an LLM degree and bar admission in order to advance their careers in corporate practice. The NYU-JFBA program addresses the need for greater international and comparative research on public interest issues. The 1999 memorandum of understanding establishing the program says its goal is to facilitate an “exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experience between the public interest bars of the United States and Japan” in order to contribute to the “practice of public interest law on a worldwide basis.” It said the parties expect the relationship “will assist in preparing the next generation of leaders and activists in Japan and the field of human rights law.”
“NYU Law has enjoyed an especially strong reputation in two areas: engagement with law on a global level and active promotion of law’s public interest role,” Upham said. “The JFBA program plays a leading role in both these areas. It has deepened our international sophistication beyond transactional law to include comparative perspectives on public interest lawyering. At the same time the visiting scholars have demonstrated to our students, both JDs and LLMs, that imaginative approaches to public interest work on a domestic level are not limited to the familiar work of Western hemisphere lawyers. They have helped us come closer to being the global law school that we aspire to become.”
One recent visitor under the program spent his time at NYU examining US systems for certifying and engaging court translators. No such system currently exists in Japan, but a recent increase in immigrants from other Asian countries has drawn new attention to the need. Other recent visitors have researched children’s rights and authentication of digital evidence.
Masako Mori addressing an NYU Law class on September 20, 2022.
Prominent alumni include Ms. Masako Mori, a member of the upper house of Japan’s parliament and until recently special advisor to the prime minister on women’s empowerment, and Ms. Kazuko Ito, founder and vice president of Human Rights Now, a leading human rights NGO based in Japan that is active throughout Asia. Both have given talks at NYU Law during the past two years.
“Japanese public interest lawyers who have spent time with us over the years have greatly enriched the NYU Law community,” said Katherine Wilhelm, executive director of USALI. “We hope to continue the program for another 25 years.”