2012 Volume 2012 Issue 76 Pages 172-189
Globalization has enabled the most specialized legal services for large corporate client sectors especially in common law jurisdictions. On the contrary, legal services in rural, regional and remote areas have generally been declining for the lack of resources and funding. To overcome this problem and realize access to justice in rural area, common law jurisdictions have taken special measures for decades. These measures are generally divided into three categories: legal aid funded by government, nonprofit organization (NGO), and pro bono. These three groups have collaborated with each other to maximize legal services in rural area. However these three groups have suffered from “trade off” problem at the same time. That means the legal aid will be reduced if pro bono is activated a lot, for example. Under this historical context, Japan Legal Support Center that provides both civil and criminal legal aid funded by government was established in 2006 in addition to recent growing activity of nonprofit organizations in Japan and lawyers’ traditional pro bono activity. This paper analyzes the multiple forms of legal services in rural area and future issue from the point of comparison between common law jurisdictions and Japan.
