Private law schools in Japan during the Meiji period

The article examines the history of the formation and institutionalization of private legal education in Japan during the Meiji era. The chronological framework of the study is determined by the fact that, before the Meiji Revolution, there was no system of professional legal education in Japan, and there was no separate stratum of lawyers in the social structure of Japanese society.

The first private law schools were established in Japan in the 1880s. According to a widely accepted opinion, their appearance was a form of resistance of the Japanese liberal public to the ideology and principles on which legal education was based in state educational institutions (the Law School of the Ministry of Justice and the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo). At the same time, a small amount of fragmented legal information was available to Japanese students in the 1870s in private language schools, where foreign languages were taught. However, this form of education did not confer any formal privileges, as graduates were not awarded legal qualifications. Much attention was paid to the study of Western law through the activities of private study groups set up by legal associations of “advocates” (代言者 daigensha). These study groups can be seen as the predecessors of organized private law schools.

The article provides a detailed overview of the private law schools that opened during the Meiji period and defines their place in the educational system developed in those years. Many of the private law schools opened during the Meiji period underwent a series of organizational changes and acquired the official status of private universities in the first half of the 20th century. The article draws attention to the “struggle for influence” between the public sector of legal education and private institutions, as well as to the “factional rivalry” between law schools that taught different systems of Western law (French, English, German). The article also examines the content of law students’ curricula at some private schools, identifying the role of “honorary hired foreigners” in organizing the education process of future Japanese lawyers. In conclusion, the authors express their own opinions on the reasons that determined the demand for legal education among the Japanese during the Meiji period. 

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