What a hot summer we have had with some big temperatures nearing 40 degrees! As this newsletter releases we are gradually crawling out of the heat and the insects singing outside the window in the early mornings and evenings are telling me that summer 2022 is about to close out and autumn will soon be here at last!I am so happy about that. With so many clients on holiday it has been a bit of a quieter month over here at Catherine O’Connell Law HQ from a “working IN the business” perspective, but I have been doing lots of “work ON the business” and enjoying month #2 as an independent board member at Fujitsu. 

Here’s what I got up to in August!

• My first monthly wrap up for July, was published as a blog on my new website in early August. I had a lot of joy preparing this blog and plenty of lovely feedback. Most popular was the photo of me and my mum and second was that I’m a member of the Ministry of Justice Translation of Japanese Laws into English Committee. 

  I have a reputation for being active in the community so I have found that this process of collating all the activities together in one place, is a time saver and also a really great place to have a “ta daaa” list (instead of a “done” list) of activities and accomplishments.… How do you keep a log of what you get up to every month?

• I also was so very proud to publish my very first newsletter for my Lawyer on Air Podcast community! In business we have some feeling of pressure to publish a newsletter to keep in touch with clients, but I’ve never really known what to write about that would be interesting. So I niched down to the LOA community of guests and fans of the podcast. It was a huge success with at 90%+ open rate, which for lawyer newsletters is apparently very good! It’s designed to be colourful and fun and the most non-boring newsletter by a lawyer in Japan! If you are interested in being on the distribution list, you can subscribe here

• I met up with three Lawyer Extraordinaire Podcast Guests, Alkis Kotzampasis, Royanne Doi and Lani Vinas to give them their LOA merch! I am slowly making my way around meeting up with all the lovely people who have been guests on the show. If you’d like your special mug sooner than later give me a shout and we can meet up for coffee or a glass of wine! I also released two episodes - Matthias Voss Managing Partner at Allen & Overy and a Summer Bonus Special episode with three lovely lawyers extraordinaire.

• Jandals in Japan podcast also had two episodes release with my co-host Jayne Nakata: Episode 12 with Adam Hall and Episode 13 with David Downs

• I co-wrote an article on Linkedin about the new law requiring mandatory registration of real estate properties in Japan and the new law allowing for on-line registration of Notarial Deeds such as wills. I collaborated with my colleague Sanae Sekiya who does this work as a specialist. We also collaborated on an earlier article about wills and estate planning in Japan (still up to date). These articles are simply a community service as I am asked about estate law in Japan every other week. It came to my attention that this information was hard to find in Japan, and people need to know about it. This was also a reason why I chose to record a podcast episode with Yuka Hongo who is a US-qualified lawyer in Hawaii who knows about estate planning for people in the US or foreigners with property in the US. Sometimes it is good to just do things to help people find the right place to start the first step with information about legal topics. I think as lawyers we have a duty of service to the wider community. Now when people ask me about this topic I can simply send them the links to these articles, so it’s very efficient time management!

• The article I wrote on the trend of outsourced legal services was published in the August issue of Asian Legal Business. Great to see my colleagues at Tokyo International Law also working in this space now. Pavitra Iyer who works at TIL was Guest on Episode 3 in Season 2 of the Lawyer on Air podcast and you can listen to her fascinating career story here. 

• I spent a day with The Board Director Training Institute (BDTI) doing their Governance course in Japanese on 1 August. I have done many of their courses and redone English language courses in Japanese for further study. BDTI has a good range of programs for people interested in building up skills for board roles and so I recommend them. They cover e-learning courses you can tackle at your own pace, full day intensive director online and in person training and webinars released on YouTube on various topics with interesting guests who have a bunch of practical advice  

• I was a guest on the Counsel to Counsel Podcast with Stephen Seckler which was a really fun chat where we discussed my experience in assimilating into the Japanese legal community and we also talked about lessons I have learned from producing my own podcast. I wrote about this experience here.

In other news, it’s been 13 years in August since I lost my dear dad. He was always the one who showed so much interest in all I do and I dearly miss our chats on the phone and his voice. August has always been a tough month for me since he passed on Nagasaki Day. It was really hard to bear, until last year. I had a marvelous revelation in my coaching sessions with Sarah Furuya that enabled me to celebrate every day in August with a memory of Dad. This has helped me immensely to move through August without the deep anguish I had for years since dad died. I hope Dad is reading these blogs over my shoulder as I type and seeing all the things I am up to and knowing I am settled. The photo in this month’s blog is of Dad, Mum and me at the Golden Temple in Kyoto. RIP Dad - you are missed every day of my life! 

See you next month!

Catherine