We believe that expertise in three areas are essential for successfully resolving a dispute (litigation, in particular). These are, firstly, the ability to discover and select relevant facts, documents, materials, witnesses and other evidence to support the client’s claim or argument; secondly, the ability to devise the best legal arguments based on the available supporting evidence; and thirdly, the ability to present the evidence and argument in a logical and persuasive manner. Of course, lawyers need to be familiar with current, relevant laws and judicial precedents and how they are or may be interpreted by the court, arbitrator, etc. (the “decision maker”), but familiarity with a specific area of the law, such as corporate or finance, by itself is not enough. The successful resolution of a dispute primarily depends on the expertise of the lawyer in the three abilities mentioned above, which are not something that can be learned by reading a book, but are a type of know-how acquired over time by actually handling many different types of dispute resolution matters (e.g., litigation, arbitration, mediation, etc.) in a variety of practice areas (e.g., corporate, real estate, finance, intellectual property, etc.). The best forum (e.g., court, arbitration panel, mediator, etc.) for resolving a dispute depends on the nature of each dispute.
Our lawyers have a great wealth of experience in dealing with many types of dispute resolution matters (e.g., litigation, arbitration, mediation and other proceedings) between parties located in Japan and overseas. Our particular strength lies in handling large-scale disputes involving claims for damages that exceed billions of yen and in handling complex disputes that require highly specialized knowledge. We have been able to achieve favorable results for our clients in most cases due to the skill-level of our lawyers in the three abilities mentioned above (i.e., (i) discovery and selection of beneficial evidence; (ii) analysis of relevant law and precedents and creation of refined and persuasive arguments that are easily understood by the decision maker and (iii) the effective presentation of the evidence (e.g., examination of witnesses) and arguments to the decision maker). Where possible, we often undertake pre-trial measures, such as provisional seizure, to rapidly achieve the best results for our client without having to go through full trial. Our lawyers work directly and proactively with our clients to find the most effective way to resolve the matter in a manner that benefits the client.
We have considerable experience in resolving disputes (through litigation, provisional dispositions, arbitrations, etc.) in a wide range of practice areas, some of which are as follows: