Launching your own firm in Japan treating clients as your team mates with Akiko Araki
A full transcript follows.
Akiko Araki shows us that in addition to big law there is another way to do law in Japan. Your way.
Akiko is the founder and Managing Partner of Araki International IP & Law. We follow her career from her first inspiration to be a lawyer to cleverly setting up her own practice when she transitioned into studying IP law.
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would leave us a message here!
In this episode you’ll hear:
Akiko’s inspiration for becoming a lawyer when she was young
How she learned to be an associate who practices effective rather than perfect work
Finding her niche in the area of IP law and deciding to register her own law firm name early on
What it’s really like to run your own law firm
Her favourite book and other fun facts
About Akiko
Akiko Araki is the founder and Managing Partner of Araki International IP & Law. After a ten-year career with major law firms including US-based global firms, she founded Araki International to create an accessible platform for international clients who need legal supports to develop their business. As an attorney admitted both in California and Japan, she supports clients especially in cross-border matters, advising on Intellectual Property (IP), technology transactions, IT, data privacy, consumer law, labor law, general corporate and dispute resolutions. With its culture of promoting collaborations, Araki International welcomes various opportunities to work with clients and colleagues in a professional and friendly way.
Connect with Akiko
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akiko-araki-397740122/
Website: https://arakiplaw.com/en/
Links
Poseidon: https://www.poseidonrestaurant.com/
Ally Mcbeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_McBeal
Connect with Catherine
Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawyeronair
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.oconnell.148
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oconnelllawyer
Transcript
Catherine: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode in the Lawyer on Air Podcast. I'm the host of the show, Catherine O'Connell. I'm a Tokyo based commercial lawyer, a podcaster, an external board member, and a coach mentor to lawyers who want to go next level with their careers. Today I'm joined by Akiko Araki, who is managing partner at Araki International IP and Law.
Akiko is an attorney at law in California and in Japan, and she is also a Japanese patent attorney. Akiko founded and manages Araki International after a 10 year career with major law firms including US based global firms. Akiko also founded Araki International to create an accessible platform for international clients who need legal support to develop their businesses in Japan. As an attorney admitted to both California and Japan, she supports clients, especially in cross border matters, advising on intellectual property, technology transactions, IT, data privacy, consumer law, labour law and general corporate law, as well as dispute resolutions.
With its culture of promoting collaborations, Araki International welcomes various opportunities to work with clients and colleagues in a professional and friendly way. Well, I met Akiko at the Japan Law Awards this year in 2022. And truly, I was struck by her professional nature and her courage to set up her own law firm in Japan. And I really wanted to hear her story so that others who can be like her, who want to aspire to manage a law firm in Japan can learn from Akiko's wisdom.
At those law awards Akiko is actually in the top five as a finalist in the Young Lawyer of the Year award category. Well, when she's not doing law, Akiko also likes to do cooking, and eating she tells me, and she also enjoys playing with her pretty kitty cat called Max. Well, I can't wait to get started. Akiko, welcome to the show.
Akiko: Hi. Thank you very much for having me today. I'm so excited to talk with you about various issues and career development. It was such a pleasure meeting with you at the Japan Law Awards, several months ago, and congratulations on your achievement winning the award.
Catherine: Thank you so much, Akiko. It was really lovely to have you come up to me after that and you know, just say your words and I think you are also aspiring to be up on that stage at some point. So we're gonna get you there at some stage. Thank you so much for your, uh, kind words.
Akiko: Thank you.
Catherine: I know that you've listened to our podcasts in the past, so you know what my opening question is, and it is if we were meeting up in person, and I hope we can do that again very soon, where would you like to go? Do you have a favourite wine bar or restaurant that you like and what would you choose from the menu?
Akiko: I love to go with you to Poseidon in San Diego, which is a super nice seaside restaurant where we can enjoy a beautiful ocean view with pretty nice wine and cocktails.
Catherine: Ooh. What kind of wine or cocktail would you choose?
Akiko: Usually I love drinking wine, but when I go to Poseidon, I recommend having beautiful cocktails, for example, the Hawaiian cocktail with pretty flowers.
Catherine: Ooh, sounds lovely. So Poseidon is like the Greek God of the sea, isn't it? So that's the name of the restaurant, cause it looks out to the sea?
Akiko: Yes.
Catherine: Oh.
Akiko: I think so.
Catherine: I think it must be. San Diego is somewhere I visited, gosh, 10 years ago. I loved it. I really wanna go back. Thank you very much.
Akiko: Oh, really? Really? Yeah. I want to go there again. It's such a beautiful city. One of my favourites.
Catherine: Let's do it sometime. All right, and let's move in then, I wanted to ask you about your early, early, early days. So if you think back to when you were a child, or even when you were a young teenager or adult, what kind of career were you thinking about? What did you want to be?
Akiko: Yeah, it's a bit surprising to you, but I already wanted to be a lawyer when I was an elementary school student. Maybe around 10 years old or so.
Catherine: Really, really, why? How did that happen? You may be, actually, I think Akiko, you might be the very first person to say that from elementary school, 10 years old, you wanted to be a lawyer. What influenced you on that? How did you know that?
Akiko: Yeah, yeah. Actually, I grew up in the countryside in Shimane Prefecture. Do you know Shimane?
Catherine: I do know Shimane. Yes. Yes.
Akiko: I grew up there and no lawyers in my family and I had never met, ever met lawyers at that time. But I remember that I watched a drama featuring a woman lawyer on TV at that time, though I forgot the title of it, but I felt she was so cool and I decided to be a lawyer in the future.
Catherine: My goodness, isn't it amazing how TV can influence you? You're probably too young to understand or remember or know of Ally McBeal, which was a program that was on when I was a young, young lawyer, and it sort of influenced me on how cool you could be if you worked in a law firm. Do you know that Ally McBeal?
Have you seen it or watched it?
Akiko: Yeah. I know that. I know that, although I've never seen it, but I know that, yeah.
Catherine: It's probably a little dated now and I'm not sure if it would still appeal to everybody these days, but it was certainly something that, you know, I would, before we were sort of recording things or you had to come home and be there on the day to watch this TV program. So it was always, we all watched it, my group of lady lawyer friends, and then we'd talk about it the next day over lunch or over messages and things like that.
It was quite fun. You've reminded me.
That's great. I mean, goodness from 10 years old, you wanted to do that. That's so amazing.
So from those early days, what's been your journey then through till now? We did a little bit of an introduction there, but there's so much that's happened for you. Tell us about what happened from those early days through till now.
Akiko: So, I first wanted to become a lawyer when I was 10 years old. So in my last year at high school, I decided without any hesitation that I would enter university to study law. Yeah. I just did it. I mean, I had entered Tohoku University when I was 18 to study law, to become a lawyer. But after I entered university, I changed my mind.
My desire to be a lawyer had gone then.
Catherine: What happened? What happened?
Akiko: Yeah. Because after entering the university, what struck me was how interesting it was to study law. At that time, my interest was not in a future career, I mean, to be a lawyer anymore, but I focused on just enjoying purely interesting research and the study in law.
Catherine: Really. That's very interesting.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: You are again, quite unique in that some people don't actually enjoy the process of studying law, but they enjoy being a lawyer. But you really enjoyed that learning about what the rules and procedure and cases and the way that law is formed. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about there that you really loved and enjoyed it?
Akiko: Yeah, that was super exciting to me. It's something unusual, but I really loved learning and researching and also discussing various issues in law with professors and other students in the classroom. So, I eventually wanted to be a law professor rather than an attorney in the future.
Catherine: Mm. Was that, was that really because those professors that you were discussing things with might have influenced you there?
Akiko: Yeah. Yeah. That was so exciting to me. Yeah, sometimes we can't find a concrete outcome, different from the science. But that was so exciting to me and I wanted to learn more.
Catherine: Mm. So you quite liked that? Yeah. So you quite liked that grey area, which wasn't either black or white. You liked the idea that there was something you could work on in that grey area. Wow.
Akiko: And also I loved discussing with others, those grey areas, how to solve the problem and which kind of outcome would be appropriate to solve.
Catherine: Mm.
Akiko: That kind of thing was quite fascinating to me.
Catherine: All right. Well, that sounds really interesting. So you're thinking about being a law professor, then what happens?
Akiko: So when I was a senior in college, my instructor said that it took too long at the law school to become a law professor, so I entered the law school. It was then that I was faced for the first time with the decision about my future career path in reality. Yeah. At that time I was so naive. Yeah.
Before that I was just enjoying studying law. As I said, I was like, Oh, it's so exciting to learn something new like that.
Catherine: But that's great. I mean, that's really what it should be about. You've just hit it. You know? It should be about having fun when you're studying. It shouldn't really be too much concentration on your future. You know, enjoying the present is a really great thing. So I'm glad you've said that, and I think it's really important for us to try and be excited and enjoy the process that we're in, in the actual moment.
Akiko: Yeah. I just enjoyed studying law, but, you know, actually the path to becoming a professor is so difficult. One, as you can imagine, it'll be required to get a doctorate degree, and even with the doctorate, there'll be no guarantee of eventually obtaining a faculty position at a university. So, facing this difficulty, again, I considered becoming an attorney.
Going back to my mind when I was a teenager at an elementary school, that was the story. I started to prepare for the bar exam in Japan.
Catherine: Yeah. And what happened then? You got the bar.
Akiko: Yeah, I got the bar to be a lawyer in the future and I decided to start my career as an attorney in Tokyo in maybe 2010.
Catherine: 2010. Okay. And so what happened then in those first years? Some of the things that you loved or some of the challenges of being a lawyer? Was it all that you thought it was going to be? Was it like that cool career of that lady lawyer in the drama?
Akiko: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was such a tough story actually. I entered a Japanese domestic law fund when I was around 26 maybe. That was a prestigious one, and to be honest, the first several years at that law firm was really, really the hardest time of my life.
Catherine: Mm.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: Mm. Was that the Oh-Ebashi Law Firm?
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: Yeah. So you were there for what, four, five years? And it's tough because there's so many new things to learn. It's not as exciting perhaps as studying and researching the law was, it was difficult in terms of what, what kinds of challenges were there?
Akiko: Yeah, I faced challenges and I think that one of the reasons was related to my previous dream to be a professor. As I wanted to be a professor. I always wanted to do perfect and beautiful work.
Catherine: Mm
Akiko: And I always think about why the theory is appropriate, why that happens, why that outcome also is caused, but you know, as an attorney, especially for junior associates, that kind of completed perfect work is not welcomed. Because efficiency is super important for attorneys because we are not professors.
Catherine: You're right.
Akiko: Yeah. So, you know, it's sometimes better to spend 10 hours to do 80% of the work than we spend 50 hours to do 100% of the work. That's the reality because clients expect to solve the problem they are facing right now, and they do not expect 100% perfect and beautiful work at all.
Catherine: I see what you're saying. They want the answer rather than caring about the creativeness or the beautifulness of the process.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: Whereas that matters to you inside because it's your work effort and your work product, but they want the result.
Akiko: Yes, yes. But, I didn't understand that point because I was too young and I was working so hard, even for very small issues, trying to answer all the questions, pursuing perfect and beautiful work. And that was obviously not a good approach to work as an attorney, especially for the junior associate level.
Catherine: Ah. What about also, you mentioned the professor thinks about the why of something. Why that theory, why the outcome? Did you lose also or not have so much of the why behind your work as a lawyer as well? Did that also disappear as well as this beautiful and perfect part of the work?
Akiko: Yeah, that's true. It's so important for attorneys to consider why it's sometimes required, but my approach was so bad because I always considered why even for very small issues.
Catherine: Mm.
Akiko: Yeah, that's not a good approach as an attorney, especially for the junior associate. So I completely lost my confidence.
And I almost lost motivation to work as an attorney, and I wanted to return back to university to be a professor at that time.
Catherine: Oh, so that's one of the, maybe quite a bit of a low in your career. What did you do then to get over that feeling of wanting to, you know, not be there and to go back to university? What happened to change you?
Akiko: That was maybe when I was three or four years at Oh-Ebashi. I handled one matter, that matter changed my mind, and that was actually an IP infringement matter, and I cannot explain the details of it.
Catherine: No. Yeah.
Akiko: It was a significant matter for the client company, and I received phone calls many times from the client contact person almost every day. And that person told me many times how anxious that person was about the outcome. So I really wanted to help the client and worked hard. And our team eventually got the outcome favourable to the client, and the client was very happy about it. And that made me very happy as well. That was the first experience for me to feel so happy to help the client.
So, yeah.
Catherine: Great. Really is great, right? That feedback from your client and you could see the difference that you made in their life.
Akiko: Yeah. I enjoyed researching and studying and also discussing when I was in university, but this experience really changed my mind. I realised that it is a super exciting experience to help our clients and make them happier. That is not something I can experience if I become a professor rather than an attorney.
Catherine: Yeah, and it's almost hard to describe that feeling of excitement because of what you've done for your client and how to talk about it, right? Because it's happened. And so what happened then after that? Did you decide that you quite liked the IP area of law, or did you continue to do general law? What happened then for the next few years?
Akiko: Yes, I started my career as an attorney, to handle various kinds of issues, not only IP law, but also general corporate compliance issues, M&A and other various kinds of legal matters. I didn't start my career as an IP professional, but through that experience handling IP litigation matters, I really wanted to be an IP professional rather than an attorney handling general matters.
Catherine: Yeah. So was it that you, because you got that great outcome on the IP matter with your client, they really got a great outcome. You enjoyed the work. Is that what led you to then be more interested in IP law than say general corporate law?
Akiko: Yes, that's true. That's true.
Catherine: Okay. So what did you do then? You were at Atsumi & Sakai I think for a little bit there too.
What happened with your next sort of few years there of progress through different law firms?
Akiko: So since then I worked really hard with good motivation. And I wanted to develop my career as an IP attorney in the future. So I quit the job, and then I decided to go to the United States to enter law school there. I entered Berkeley Law in 2016 maybe.
Catherine: Right. You went to Berkeley, so I mean, you don't just think of this automatically, I'm going to the USA. How did you come to think about that as a decision?
Akiko: The reason why I decided to study in the United States was, I really wanted to change my career. As I said, I faced difficulty in handling matters when I was a junior associate, then I got motivation to develop my career as an IP attorney, IP lawyer.
Catherine: Hmm.
Akiko: And I just wanted to change my career.
And then I went to the United States. It sounds not so natural, but in the law firm in which I started my career, many of the young attorneys studied abroad, and for that reason I felt it was quite natural for me to study abroad. Same as other colleagues.
Catherine: Great. Why not? And you wanted to do something different, right? You wanted to change your career. So why not do something, many might say, diving into the deep end of the pool, right? Really going for it rather than dipping your toe. You went to the USA and you entered Berkeley. That's incredible.
How exciting. And so what did the USA teach you then about the difficulties in your career? Or did it give you inspiration to do more?
Akiko: I wanted to go to Berkeley Law to learn US IP law, and Berkeley was absolutely the best place to learn IP in the United States because Berkeley is close to Silicon Valley, the centre of tech startups, and also their IP program was very famous in the US. And I could learn so many important matters in Berkeley.
Catherine: Fantastic. And did you do any work when you were over in the States or purely do your study?
Akiko: Yeah. Actually before studying abroad, I quit the previous firm and I just registered Araki law firm at that time.
Catherine: Oh, did you?
Akiko: Yes, yes.
Catherine: What year is that? That means, is that 2016?
Akiko: In 2016. Yeah.
Catherine: Whoa.
Akiko: A paper company, but I registered Araki law farm at the Japanese Bar.
Catherine: Let's pause there. That is amazing. You already had your intention to be your own law firm owner back in 2016.
Akiko: Yes. Yes.
Catherine: Great.
Akiko: I said, I faced difficulty because I was not a good junior associate when I started my career in Japan. But there was also a good point that some clients really loved me and they wanted to work closely with me, and even some of them retained me directly.
So I thought that I have a good talent to work with clients. So I decided to start my own law firm in maybe 2016 and I intended to start my business after going back to Japan.
Catherine: Whoa. That's very exciting. Gosh, how inspirational for you to have done that? Did you tell other people, like your family or your friends that you established that?
Akiko: Oh yeah. Yeah. I told my plan to everybody, and then they told me that you are crazy.
Catherine: Ah, there we go. There's the naysayers coming out very early saying that you are crazy, but you knew you were not crazy. Right?
Akiko: Hmm. I didn't think that I was crazy, but everybody said that I was crazy.
Catherine: Well, there you go. You've proved them wrong and we're gonna come to your firm shortly, but through, you didn't exactly go and do that straight away, but obviously you are thinking about your own firm, but you are trying to also, I'm presuming, gather some more experience and gather some more insights to working in the law by doing some more work experience with other law firms before you established your firm.
Right? So you worked in Japan again, and you also, you know, worked with a local firm in Japan, and an international law firm in Japan too. How about those experiences before you started your firm? What were they like?
Akiko: After coming back to Japan, I strongly decided to be an IP professional rather than the general attorney. So, I considered how to develop my career as an IP professional at that time. And I found that it was so hard to get IP work from potential clients without significant reasons, especially considering the Japanese IP market where only limited numbers of IP litigations are brought before the courts in each year.
So, I realised that situation for the first time when I came back to Japan. So I changed the strategy. I decided to be a professional who handles cross border IP transactions and litigation. So, I mean, at that time, I firstly decided to focus more on cross border matters rather than domestic matters. Because there were already many extremely talented litigators handling domestic Japanese patent litigation before Japanese courts. So I tried to join another market.
Catherine: Mm.
Akiko: Cross border IP matters. So actually I was not so interested in handling cross border matters, because before studying abroad, I didn't handle cross border or international matters at all.
I only handled purely domestic Japanese legal matters. So I wanted to stick to being an IP professional. I really loved IP, so that was the motivation why I entered the market in cross border matters rather than Japanese domestic matters.
Catherine: Right. So you started to shine in a different way, right? You changed your strategy very strategically and set up this cross-border IP transaction business or focus that you had. And at that time, did you take the IP, the patent attorney exam? Is that right?
Akiko: Uh, no. No. I registered as a Japanese patent attorney but actually the situation was that I could just register as a patent attorney because I'm an attorney at law in Japan.
Catherine: So you can just register?
Akiko: Automatically I could register.
Catherine: Oh, I see. You can do that and specialise. Right. I see you can do that and specialise. That's so great. Well, wow. From those early days then and all that travel, you finally in July, 2021, Akiko, just over a year ago, you made the shift out of working for other people into working for yourself after registering your firm back in 2016.
So when did you know that was the time to do it within yourself? Did it just happen?
Akiko: It just happened to me. Yeah. It's a long path to come here. But I always considered to have my own clients, because I really wanted to help my clients with my experience and expertise. That was motivation to be an IP professional and improve myself.
Catherine: Mm.
Akiko: I've always considered running my own business, but eventually I found that it was a good time to start my own business because at that time I had experience as an attorney for maybe around 10 years.
So in Japanese domestic law farms, it's a good time to get promoted to a partner. So I decided that it's a good time for me to start my own business alone.
Catherine: Right, so you promoted yourself to partner.
Akiko: Yes. Yeah. Before that I was just an associate, senior associate at an international law firm, because it's a bit more difficult to get promoted to partner at international law firms, compared to Japanese domestic law firms.
But, I convinced myself that it's good timing for me to be promoted to a partner.
Catherine: And also you talked about just before that your clients loved you. They wanted to work closely with you, so clients came to you pretty much straight away.
Akiko: That's not the matter. So I needed to start BD, business development from scratch. It was so hard. It was not an easy experience for me, but I did it.
Catherine: You did it. You did it very, Yeah. You did it. How did you do it? What did you do? Did you go and join various organisations, like Bar Association or did you try some other method to build up your business development and gather your clients together?
Akiko: Business development, it's not so easy, especially for younger attorneys. But I had experience in engaging in business development when I was an associate at international firms. It is not so common in Japanese domestic law firms for associates to engage in business development matters.
But for international law firms, it is quite common for senior associates to develop their career and try to get their own matters from potential clients. So I had experience in doing that activity when I was an associate at a law firm.
Catherine: It's kind of practice, you got your practice in and you knew kind of the method of how you could go about doing business development for yourself.
Akiko: Yes, that's right. I joined many events, meeting many people in IP or legal fields and got contacts from them and I tried to reach out to them to have a discussion on business development. It was not so easy for me because at that time I was just an associate, so the majority of them just ignored my email.
Catherine: I see. Right. An associate. But when you became your own managing partner, your own firm, how did that make a difference that you were the managing partner reaching out to people? Was it different?
Akiko: Yes. Different because when I started with business development, when I was an associate, maybe several years ago, I didn't have enough track records. But now I have more track records in handling IP transactions, especially cross border transactions in the global market. So that made me more comfortable to promote myself and sell myself to my potential clients.
And then I was so lucky and I was, I felt very happy that recently some of my potential clients contacted me, asking to work with me together. There was the client who didn't respond several years ago when I contacted. So the situation changed dramatically since then.
Catherine: That's amazing, isn't it? How great.
Akiko: So a painful experience because a majority of contacts didn't respond at all several years ago. That was painful.
Catherine: It's really like in Japanese you say “itai”, it so hurts you. Right? And then suddenly look at that. They've seen you go out on your own and that you are now a managing partner of your own firm and they came back to you. That is really an endorsement of you.
Akiko: Yep. I think so.
Catherine: Wow. So if you could turn back the clock and talk to your 10 year old self, right? That person who wanted to be a lawyer at age 10, what would you tell her from now Akiko on the lawyer on air podcast? What would you tell her?
Akiko: I would say that Akiko you can get here eventually, you can get here to be an attorney as you are dreaming now, I would say to younger Akiko when I was 10 years old.
Catherine: Hmm. You can get there.
Akiko: Yeah, you can get there.
Catherine: And you can have fun getting there.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: And sometimes it might be tough.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: But you can get there.
Akiko: You can get there.
Catherine: I love that. And you've talked too about founding your business, Araki International, to create an accessible platform for international clients who need the legal support to do their business in Japan. What does that mean to you then, in reality?
How are you creating that platform?
Akiko: Yeah, actually the initial motivation for me to start my own law firm was to create a new unique IP boutique firm focusing on cross border IP matters. I wanted to incorporate the strengths of domestic firms with those of international firms because I experienced both international firms and domestic law firms.
So, we have strengths to handle cross border matters like international firms, but at the same time, we'd like to be a partner that all the clients feel free to ask our advice for not only significant legal matters, but also small daily matters like domestic law firms.
Catherine: And so what's been some of the career or professional highlights for you? Over this last year and two months I think it is, since you established your firm, what's some of the things that have come up for you, aside from, as you just mentioned, the people who have come back to you after the rejection?
Are there other things that have come up that have really been highlights over the last year?
Akiko: Yeah. Yeah. I think that this initial attempt has been successful to some extent. Since I founded Araki International, we have supported large transactions, I mean, IP matters, cross border IP matters involving millions of US dollars. But at the same time, we handle very small matters, such as review of routine agreement, such as, you know, non-disclosure agreement, something like that.
I think that that was due to the flexible structure of our firm. The first thing is that in handling cross border matters, sometimes we need to collaborate with local firms in relevant jurisdictions, you know, and there can be situations where this firm is strong in this specific area, but in another area, a different firm might be stronger.
And sometimes that situation occurs. And in that situation, as we are an independent firm, we can collaborate with various law firms. Not specific law firm, but we can collaborate with any law firms in opposite jurisdictions in handling cross border matters. This is one flexibility. And another thing is that avoiding conflict issues.
You know, conflict is always the issue in handling dispute resolution in big law. If attorneys in big law try to bring IP litigation matters, they sometimes won't be able to take those matters because the opposite party is also the firm's client.
Catherine: Yes. They have a conflict or something. Yeah, that's right. Mm.
Akiko: This is always the issue in every big law firm, but as we are quite a small team, we can effectively avoid this kind of issue and it can help our clients in various matters.
So this kind of flexibility enables me and our team to support our clients. But this doesn't mean that we are competing with international firms. It's not possible at all because we have such a small team and it's not possible and we do not intend to compete with international firms, but rather we are collaborating, collaborating with international firms in entering those kinds of cross border matters and international transactions, dispute resolution, that's our situation.
And this kind of firm is quite new in the Japanese market and I think that we can effectively and efficiently help more clients in the Japanese market. And that's my dream and our dream.
Catherine: Fantastic. And you talked about your team, how many people in your team?
Akiko: Right now we have two staff members. One helping me in the firm's administration. Another is a paralegal.
Catherine: Oh, how did you find them?
Akiko: Oh, well, the paralegal is my friend. I met him maybe several years ago. He was my former teammate. And also, my staff member handling the firm's administration, I found her through the interview process.
Catherine: Mm. That's great. And how about recommending to others to set up their law firm? Would you do that?
Akiko: Yeah, it's a very difficult question because starting up a new law firm, it's not easy at all. Not easy at all. We are facing difficulty all the time, every day. And we are experiencing for the first time to do a lot of things, but it's exciting at the same time. At least I love doing something new, something interesting with my team.
Catherine: Mm
Akiko: Just enjoying and trying because we can't expect what is happening in the future, but we need to decide where to go and what to do and how to get there.
Catherine: So what does it take then to be a managing partner of your own firm? For example, you know, you talked about people who said you're crazy, but you've gone beyond that. So you've denied and rejected the people who said, Well, not those people, but those comments about being crazy, Right? And you're backing yourself. You're saying, I can do it.
So what else does it take to be someone who can set up their law firm themselves?
Akiko: The motivation for me to own my own law firm is just I love what I'm doing and it's not possible for associates to have their own clients in big law, especially for international law firms. But I really wanted to have my clients and support my clients directly. And that was a big motivation for me to start my own law firm.
In addition to that, my plan to create a new law firm was welcomed by the market, by the Japanese market. Because what we are doing, it's quite new in the Japanese IP and legal market. And we could more effectively and efficiently help all the clients in Japanese markets. So I was confident that we can support more clients in the future if I founded a new law firm in the Japanese market.
Catherine: New law firm, right? You are, doesn't have to be big. You can actually be your size and still have a lot of clients who come back to you. And as you just said, you know, it's really possible now for you to have direct contact with your clients, directly support them. Whereas as an associate in a law firm, you never have the client as your own.
I think you've pulled out a really good point there.
Akiko: Thank you.
Catherine: So any thoughts then on where you see your career going, where it might head to in the future?
What's your future dream for where you are in your law firm as you go into this second year?
Akiko: For the second year, first of all, I'd like to strengthen our team. Yeah. We have now two people and we are now trying to recruit a new associate attorney, to newly join our team to develop our practice. We'd like to deliver more work to clients as a team to more satisfy our clients.
And the second thing is expanding our business, though our primary work of being closed border IP matters, as I said, that's our strength. That is true, but we handle other kinds of work such as purely domestic IP disputes, or even works outside IP such as collaboration deals, something like that. We'd like to support clients in various fields outside IP as well as cross board IP in the future.
Especially, we'd like to support startup companies as we ourselves are now starting up. We understand how challenging it is to start a company from scratch so we can support them based on our own experience and also we'd like to share the feeling, how exciting it is to start up something new with those clients.
So now we are discussing with startup companies. And I've been trying to collaborate with other organisations to help those startup companies.
Catherine: Oh, I love that cuz you, you are talking about the feeling of excitement of starting up a company and when you're dealing with those people who are starting up, you can actually really, genuinely right, authentically share that excitement and also help them because you've been a startup yourself. So that's excellent.
And how about for you personally? What's your dream for yourself, Akiko?
Akiko: I wanna be an excellent IP professional who can advise not only on Japanese IP issues, but also US IP issues to Japanese clients. That's my dream. Recently I was asked to deliver an opinion about the US patent law to find a solution for an issue the clients were facing at that time, actually that was my first experience to deliver my own opinion on IP patent issue.
Because when I was working at an International law firm, I always worked together with US local counsels to handle that kind of work. But at that time, I had to handle that matter, US patent law matter, alone without any local counsel support. And, you know, sometimes it takes courage to write an opinion on an issue where the conclusion is not clear based on the current state of law.
This matter was exactly that kind of matter, and I conducted serious research and repeatedly discussed the issue with the client to find practical solutions for their business. And then finally I got the final, we got the final solution together with the client. And yeah, that was quite a new experience for me.
The client encouraged me to develop my practice as an attorney handling US patent law issues, and I recently published a book titled US Patent Law Lecture. And I really wanna support Japanese clients in advising US patent law matters, not only Japanese legal matters. That's my dream.
And I want to improve myself. I wanna improve my English, I wanna improve my knowledge of US patent law matters and other US IP matters. And I’d love to support in the future, and collaborate with many clients in entering those kinds of IP matters in the US. That's my dream.
Catherine: Wow, what an inspiration you are. You want to do your self development and improve your knowledge in English. Look at what you just said. You're doing your research. You were discussing with that client. You found the solution. You got amazing feedback from them, and all of that is exactly what you were talking about earlier.
Those things that you love to do.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: All within that one client that you had the success with and you wrote the opinion on, again, your first time to do that without engaging US counsel. What a significant step that is. I just wanna reflect that back to you because it's truly incredible that you've done that.
And I hope that is inspiring for others. And look, you've also written a book. How Incredible. Well done, I think that's amazing. And it was a really great step for you to take, to go further into the future, Akiko, that's amazing.
Akiko: That's all thanks to my clients, because my clients treat me as their team member rather than an outside counsel, so they always encourage me to deliver good work to them. So that enables me to do this kind of work without any fear or embarrassment.
Catherine: Yeah. Well done. And your personality, I've noticed from being with you today and the previous time I met you, is so strong, but in a really positive way. I think you couldn't probably do as well as you do for your clients without having this inner, I think it's maybe you were born with it, strength that you have in your personality.
You're quite different from anyone I've met before in Japan who's a young lawyer like you. That's why I think you're an amazing inspiration for others, and I hope that people can get quite a lot from this today. From what you've been talking about, is there anything Akiko today that we haven't covered that you wanted to mention or that you wanted to re emphasise again?
Akiko: I'd like to emphasise that health is a super important thing in our life. Yeah. Our professional career is so long. Sometimes we need to work super hard to support our clients, but we need to take care of ourselves, our health. This is the basis of our career. It's a very basic point, but sometimes our young attorneys forget about it, how important health is.
So I would like to emphasise to all younger attorneys that your health is the first priority.
Catherine: Mm. And how do you look after your health as your first priority Akiko?
Akiko: Um, swimming, I sometimes go swimming, to keep healthy. And also I cook for myself.
Catherine: Mm.
Akiko: Healthy food.
Catherine: You know, when you cook yourself what is inside the food, you know exactly the content. So I think that's a really good point to keeping healthy.
All right, well, I'm going to wind down the conversation now on a little bit of a lighter note, which is what I call the quick fire round, where I ask you a few questions to wind up the interview.
So are you ready for these quick questions?
Akiko: Yep.
Catherine: Right. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Akiko: Oh, that's a very difficult question. But I would say that I love to live in Berkeley in the United States.
Catherine: Ah, right. It really had an impression on you.
Akiko: Yeah.
Catherine: Yeah. Interesting. Very exciting. And if you could start a totally different business tomorrow that wasn't your own law firm or a different occupation, what would that be?
Akiko: I wanna be a patisserie.
Catherine: Ooh.
Akiko: Do you know patisserie?
Catherine: I do.
Akiko: A good pronunciation?
Catherine: No, you're perfect. Is it like a bakery making pastries, making bakery items? Yeah.
Akiko: Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to run my own pastry shop.
Catherine: Woohoo. That could happen in the future. It could be a side business.
Akiko: Could be.
Catherine: Maybe you could have a cafe at your law firm and serve up pastries
Akiko: Sounds interesting. Good plan.
Catherine: I think that's a great idea. All right. Well if you're gonna write, I know you've already written a book, but if you are going to write a book again, another book, what would you write that about?
And it might not be a law book.
Akiko: Hmm. Yeah, actually I love cats and I always think about why cats are so free from everything. So I wanna study about cats and I wanna write and publish a book about cats' habitats.
Catherine: Oh, that's fantastic. I don't know if you know Lexi Takamatsu, who was one of my previous guests. She is also a big cat lover.
Akiko: Oh, really?
Catherine: Yes. She works in a place that looks after cats that have been left behind. She goes and looks after them every weekend. And that's her love. You two should get together and have a talk about cats.
Akiko: I wanna see her.
Catherine: Yeah. You wanna see her and we'll get you introduced. All right. So I love that. Is there another podcast or book that you are reading or listening to or that you've listened to or read recently, Akiko?
Akiko: I read a book about the story of Steve Jobs.
Catherine: Yeah. What was that?
Akiko: It was super inspiring because he started his own company and he developed, made the company super influential in the world.
Catherine: Yeah, that's a great book. Is that the one someone wrote for him just as he was not long from passing away?
Akiko: Yeah, I think that that book was an old one, I guess.
Catherine: Oh, okay. It's an older one. Right. We'll have to get the title of that and put it in the show notes for people. And is he someone that you'd like to meet, a famous person or celebrity? If it's not Steve Jobs, who's now passed away, who would it be? Someone famous that you would like to meet or have met before already?
Akiko: I'd love to meet Hello Kitty or Jibanyan.
Catherine: Oh, what's the second one?
Akiko: Jibanyan.
Catherine: I don’t know that one.
Akiko: Really?
Catherine: No. Is that a Manga character?
Akiko: Manga character.
Catherine: Oh, I'll have to check it out. Is it a cat character?
Akiko: That's a cat character.
Catherine: Okay. Sounds like, Nyan nyan. But there we go. This is what cats say. Okay. I'll have to look at that later. Thank you so much. Okay. And, mm, let me think, two more questions. What's your favourite saying? Like a kotowaza or something that you always say?
Akiko: Toke wa Kanenari. Yes.
Catherine: Which would be time is money.
Akiko: Time is money.
Catherine: Ah, sure is. Okay. Good one. And last question. You've already given us a little bit on things we didn't know about you before, but is there something else that a lot of people don't know about you that you can tell us?
Akiko: I usually love staying at home.
Catherine: Ah.
Akiko: I'm not social, I'm not a social person. Many people think that I'm such a social person, making so many friends and attending parties every night, something like that. But actually I love staying at home and reading books and studying something new, writing articles.
That's the reality. That's a real Akiko.
Catherine: Great. It's so nice and comfortable doing that too, right? And it's good to have the impression or create the impression that you are out and about, but I love that too. I like being out, but I love, like you, being home.
Akiko: Yeah, I love communicating with others. I love hanging out with my friends, but at the same time, I also love studying, reading, sleeping with my cat, things like that.
Catherine: That's a great thing. That's so lovely to finish up on. Thank you so much.
Akiko: Thank you so much.
Catherine: Well, Akiko, we've come to the end of our chat today. Thank you so much for coming on Lawyer on Air as our youngest law firm owner guest.
Akiko: Thank you so much, Catherine, for the inspiring conversation today.
Catherine: It was such a pleasure to speak with you and I loved connecting with you in this way after we'd seen each other at the awards. Thank you so much.
How can listeners connect with you? Can we do that on LinkedIn or other social media?
Akiko: I'd prefer to connect with them on LinkedIn.
Catherine: Great. Okay. We'll put that in the show notes, so anyone who's interested in picking up the conversation with you can contact you there.
Akiko: Yes.
Catherine: Great. All right, Well for my listeners, please do like this episode and subscribe to Lawyer on Air and do drop us a short review because that really helps this podcast be seen and heard by more people.
Do go ahead and share this episode with someone you think will enjoy listening and be inspired to live a wonderful lawyer extraordinaire life. That's all for now. See you on the next episode. Cheers, kampai and bye for now.
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