Friends who like to watch courtroom dramas may have seen such scenes in the dramas, where lawyers and prosecutors have heated debates on offense and defense. At the last moment, he sassily presented decisive evidence to make a final decision, which made people feel relieved and excited.

Will there be such a wonderful debate in the actual court? I don't know about other countries. In Japan, I recently discovered a comic book. The author's full-time job is actually a licensed lawyer. He has worked as a lawyer for 5 years and has independently practiced by himself. In the comics, you can see the truth about the work of Japanese lawyers and related knowledge, which completely subverts the impression of the drama.

By the way, the comic author himself has a Twitter account, and he himself will put the four-frame comics on Twitter, and interested friends can also follow him. (I have chase 😉)

Twitter [Cartoon] Bennurse のたぬじろう@B_Tanujro

Here are a few that I find quite interesting.

There are almost no lawyers in Japan who only take criminal cases!

Basically, lawyers' case content can be divided into two categories, civil cases and criminal cases.

Civil cases are simply money-related cases. Criminal cases, as the name suggests, belong to whether there is a violation of the criminal law. In principle, almost all cases that appear in dramas are criminal cases. In practice, there are not enough criminal cases in most areas of Japan to support specialized criminal litigators. In most cases, civil litigators also serve on criminal cases. According to the author, in fact, most lawyers in Japan only take civil cases. However, this may be related to the area with the number of criminal cases. The crime rate in the area with a small population is also low, and there are no criminal litigators.

Civil cases rarely proceed until a verdict is issued!

The vast majority of cases handled by lawyers are settled before they are formally sent to court.

The court is still in the process of hearing the result, and the two parties have reconciled.

Even reluctantly, the reason why most people choose to reconcile is that people who were very strong at the beginning would worry about what would happen if they lost a lawsuit. Winning a lawsuit doesn't mean it's over. If the losing party refuses to take the initiative to pay compensation, this is another troublesome matter. The winning party must decide whether to take enforcement action, and the court will not automatically help to get money. Even if you are willing to invest more time and expense to enforce it, you will eventually find that the other party does not have enough property to compensate...

Infidelity Cases (Affair) in Japan

Refer to the figure below for translation in sequence.

1. Female client: My husband seems to be cheating...
2. Male client: My cheating was discovered...
3. The third client: I was asked for compensation by the wife of the cheating object...
4. The above three people belong to different cases completely. The author can't help but sigh that it was only when he was working as a lawyer that he found out that there are so many people cheating in Japanese society...

Note: You may see the Japanese Chinese character 【無lun】 more often, and the basic meaning is the same as 【不義】, except that the latter word is a legal term. There is also a similar word [floating air], which can be used regardless of whether you are married or not.

lawyer friend

It is quite common to find out that the lawyer of the other party is a friend you know after going to court, especially in areas where lawyers are scarce, almost all lawyers know each other. However, on the court day, even if the lawyers of the two sides met in the corridor, they would at most nod their heads lightly. I am afraid that the client will misunderstand that he has colluded with the other party...

However, in some cases, it can also be beneficial to know the other party's lawyer.

In some cases, it is obvious that one party wants to file a lawsuit unreasonably. At this time, the lawyers of both parties will communicate privately, and let the lawyer of the unreasonable party advise the client not to insist on the lawsuit.

Means of Liaison Between Courts and Lawyers

Now in 2022, Japanese courts are basically still using FAX (fax machines)!

Younger friends may not have seen a fax machine, maybe they have not even heard the word... XD

In the comics, the protagonist complains that Japan has entered the Reiwa era (Reiwa 4 years = 2022). The court is still using the outdated FAX, and then he will be dragged in for re-education. A few days later, the protagonist who had undergone brainwashing and education changed his mouth and said that FAX would not be infected with computer viruses and would not be tampered with. He could send the stamped document immediately, and he could leave a record, and it was not easy to overlook it...

At present, the first episode of the comic is being presented for free on the Amazon platform in Japan , and friends with an account can go to collect it. The cover of the comic is attached here. If you want to support the author, you can choose another book with commentary (1500 yen). If you don't have a Japanese Amazon account, you can also follow his Twitter account at the top of this article.

2022/03/03 posted.

Original link to Japan behind-the-scenes observation