By SHUICHI YUTAKA/ Senior Staff Writer
August 19, 2021 at 07:00 JST
Lawyer Satoko Tomita in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward on June 30 (Photo by Shinnosuke Ito)
Lawyer Satoko Tomita was stunned to learn that many people in Japan, often foreign residents, simply give up on seeking legal assistance due to an absence or shortage of legal eagles in their areas.
Even as a student at Tokyo Metropolitan University, where she passed the bar exam in her fourth year, Tomita was regarded as a highflyer. She was an avid hot-air balloonist who captained the institution's ballooning club. On the elite track, she was quickly invited to join a law office handling international business affairs.
A chance encounter changed the course of her life. When Tomita and a friend visited a lawyer working to deploy young legal experts to areas with few attorneys, she wondered why “there are no lawyers there.”
“I should go to those zones,” Tomita recalled thinking.
Around that time, the Japan Legal Support Center was set up to offer general assistance to address citizens’ legal problems. Tomita quickly responded and was appointed as the first director of the center’s Sado Local Law Office in Niigata Prefecture in October 2006.
Tomita dealt with more than 1,000 legal cases during her three years and five months tenure there. The assignment allowed her to experience firsthand that people in need of legal assistance don't always have experts to turn to.
After working at the center’s Okinawa branch and studying in the United States, Tomita got involved in a project organized by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in Nepal to improve the country's court procedures.
In July last year, Tomita, 40, became the first head of the Japan Legal Support Center’s international department.
Phone calls for assistance poured in over dismissal and poverty issues linked to the novel coronavirus pandemic from foreign residents across Japan. In some instances, immediate legal advice was of utmost priority.
Tomita lives by the motto that lawyers must listen to all calls for professional help, something she adhered to when working in the regions with few legal experts.
“I want to be a beloved grandma with whom one can share any problem and provide professional assistance,” she said.
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