Although the executive branch appoints Japanese Supreme Court justices as it does in the United States, a personnel office under the control of the Supreme Court rotates lower court Japanese judges through a variety of posts. This creates the possibility that politicians might indirectly use the...

It is natural to suppose that a prosecutor's conviction rate-the ratio of convictions to cases prosecuted-is a sign of his competence. Prosecutors, however, choose which cases to prosecute. If they prosecute only the strongest cases, they will have high conviction rates. Any system that pays...

Using micro-level data (from tax records) on attorney incomes in 2004, we reconstruct the industrial organization of the Japanese legal services industry. These data suggest a bifurcated bar. The most talented would-be lawyers (those with the highest opportunity costs) pass the bar-exam...

Using micro-level tax data on attorney incomes in 2004 (when the law was changed to make it confidential), we analyze the industrial organization of the Japanese bar. These data suggest two sources of high income: an idiosyncratic return to talent in Tokyo and a compensating differential for the...