A Lesson in Culture Shock for Lawyers

More than anything, what surprised Tokyo lawyer Michi Yamagami about American education was the informality of the classroom and the interaction between teachers and students.

In Japan, professors lecture and students listen, said Yamagami, a master of laws candidate at USC Law School. But here they exchange ideas as if they’re equals, he observed, and professors have a knack for calling on students.

“The first time I was called, I was very, very nervous,” said Yamagami, a graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo who passed the demanding Japanese bar exam on his first try -- a mark of great distinction. Japan has fewer than 19,000 attorneys, compared to more than 1 million in the United States.

Fortunately, Yamagami said, he was prepared for the professor’s first question. But he became flustered when the professor continued with follow-ups, with each query becoming more specific. Aferall, he said, culturally, that’s an uncomfortable thing for an East Asian.

Yamagami and 11 other lawyers are participating in USC’s inaugural LLM program for attorneys with foreign law degrees. And Yamagami, an up-and-coming associate at the firm of Anderson Mori in Tokyo, and the others are getting a workout.

The lawyers, whom USC Law School Dean Matthew L. Spitzer describes as “the best and the brightest,” are receiving intensive training in American jurisprudence and the its legal system.

The dozen lawyers take an Introduction to U.S. Law class together and are otherwise free to take courses with students in the regular USC law degree program.

In addition to four from Japan, class members hail from India, South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan, France, Germany and Great Britain. Many are focusing on courses in entertainment law and intellectual property.

Navigating the international zone is a two-way street.

Professor David Slawson, who teaches contract and insurance law, experienced it the first time he called on a student.

Although he already had a law degree, the student was “practically paralyzed with fear,” Slawson recalled.

Since then, the professor has gone out of his way to be “extra gentle” with them, but he does not excuse them from impromptu questioning because he considers that an essential part of the training.

“If you’re going to be a lawyer, you’re going to have to withstand a lot worse pressure,” he said. “So, this is a way to break them into the real world.”

Like Yamagami, Hiromi Shiraishi, who hopes to work as a specialist in international transactions, had her baptism by fire when one of her professors asked her a question.

Shiraishi had prepared for class, but did not expect to be called on. When she was, her mind went blank, she said.

“To answer in English or explain myself in front of a native speaker is so embarrassing,” said Shiraishi, a third-year associate at Asahi Law Offices, the fifth-largest law firm in Japan.

With Piyush Sharma, an attorney with the New Delhi law firm of Bhasin & Bhasin who earned his law degree at the University of Wales, his concern was that American professors might have trouble understanding his accent.

So, he made his rounds and asked them, “Is my accent OK by you?”

“I didn’t want to take a class without the professor being comfortable with me in the accent,” he said.

But it’s more than language or accent that challenges the foreign students.

English is London-born Manbir S. Chowdhary’s first language. Still, the graduate of the University of Buckingham has experienced a cultural surprise -- albeit a pleasant one -- in the way professors and students interact here.

“I wouldn’t say that [professors in Britain] weren’t approachable -- they were -- but students feared them anyway,” said Chowdhary, a British citizen whose ancestors came from India.

“But here in the United States, professors are extremely accessible and really go out of their way to help the students out. It’s very welcome.”

Foreign lawyers contribute to the life of the law school and the university overall.

“Our law students learn to understand that their view of the legal education is not the only view that there is, but there are many other systems that approach the world in very different ways,” said Edwin M. Smith, who teaches the Introduction to U.S. Law course.

Nationwide, more than 30 law schools offer similar master’s programs, USC officials said. USC’s is unusual in its small size and disproportionate enrollment of Asian students, which partly stems from the university’s long-standing connection to that part of the world.

Last year, Spitzer flew to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea and visited large law firms to recruit students.

His pitch: With the world’s economies becoming more integrated -- and interaction among countries increasing in areas such as intellectual property, commercial transactions and human rights -- lawyers can gain a competitive advantage by understanding the American legal system.

Motoi Fujii, and Chikako Morimoto, who are married to each other, represent a new breed of Japanese lawyers who hope to move with ease in both legal worlds.

Their employer, TMI Associates, considers their U.S. training important enough to subsidize all their expenses while they complete their studies and through practical training they hope to do for a year after earning their American law degrees. Tuition for the USC program is $32,500 a year.

With just one lawyer for every 6,737 people in Japan, compared with one for every 274 in the United States, there is a big demand for lawyers of all types, but especially those with specialized skills, lawyer groups say.

What’s driving it is the growing internationalization of the Japanese economy and complex transactions that are based on U.S. laws, lawyers from Japan said.

“Our law firm has foreign clients, so we have to be proficient in English,” said Fujii.

After nearly a semester, he understands about half of what’s going on in the classroom, he said.

“In my tax class, sometimes students are laughing but I am not,” he said.

Fujii says he jots down words and phrases he doesn’t understand and looks them up after class.

He says he still isn’t used to the freedom American students exercise to ask questions in the classroom. He rarely asks questions because of his cultural inhibition.

“Asking questions means you are taking up other people’s time,” he said. “So, if I am going to ask a question, I must make sure it is a good question and that I won’t impose on other students’ time without a good reason.”

Students from abroad not only work hard, but they also are very courteous, said Slawson. “Up until two weeks ago, I had one of them -- I won’t name him -- who would thank me after every class. It kind of threw me.”