2012 Volume 2012 Issue 76 Pages 158-171
In this paper, I examine legal needs and legal services in rural areas. We conducted a survey on Tanegashima and Yakushima islands of Kagoshima prefecture. Based on findings from the survey, the following suggestions can be drawn. First, there is a variety of legal needs in rural areas, such as divorce, inheritance and trouble with on−line business. Second, in rural areas, clients are very nervous about privacy. Therefore, it is necessary the legal advice considers privacy enough, and to perform it. Third, there is a client preferring to talk with not local but “outside” lawyer. It is necessary for the opportunity of the legal advice to be provided with plural channels. Fourth, information about the use of the lawyer and legal services is too short. People in rural areas are very anxious about a lawyer’s fee. Fifth, there is some kind of factors to disturb the continuous lawyer’s use. Finally, there is the person who can talk with nobody until legal advice. Distrust of administration exists in the background. This paper argues, therefore, that the role and the function of the legal advice are very important especially in rural areas, and that the models of providing legal services in rural areas should be constructed as minimum standard in Japan society. For expansion of the access to justice, the role and the function of the legal advice should be reexamined.
