Last year I ran into my friend and fellow dean, Colin Diver, at a gathering of law school deans. I commented that he was looking particularly well rested. "Not surprising," replied Diver, "I just returned from a six-month sabbatical." Inspired by the possibility, I began thinking about taking a sabbatical myself.

Once the decision to tale a sabbatical was made, there was never any question about the destination - Temple Law School’s program in Tokyo. I had been actively involved with Temple University Japan, Temple’s branch campus in Tokyo, since its creation in 1982, so when I became dean, one of my goals was to find some way to utilize that incredible resource fir the law school.

That goals was achieved in 1994 when Temple Law School opened a unique semester-long program in Asia. Each spring, approximately 40 American law students travel to Temple’s program in Japan for five months to study Japanese, Asian and international law with 30 Japanese lawyers who are earning credits in Japan toward an LLM at Temple. We are particularly proud of the Tokyo program because it is on the cutting edge of legal education. There is no other program like it in Asia.

At TUJ, I will teach Comparative US/Japanese Constitutional Law, which is a natural for me since I teach Constitutional Law at Temple. I will also draw on my experience of negotiating with our Japanese business partners to teach a course in East/West Negotiation. (I have learned so much about negotiation theory preparing to teach this course that I wonder how much more effectively I might have negotiated with the Japanese if I had taught this course years ago!)

I am lucky to be a law school dean during one of the mist exciting times in American legal education. When law schools were first established, the curriculum concentrated on state law because federal law was not very important in the daily practice of most lawyers. If you went to law school in Pennsylvania, you studied Pennsylvania law. After World War II, the nation saw a vast expansion in federal regulation, which has continued until this day, prompting law schools to emphasize the teaching of national law. American legal education is now in another transition which will require law faculties to train lawyers to meet the needs of clients who do business around the world. As a result, the curricula of American law schools are being transformed. One-third of Temple’s fulltime faculty now teaches courses dealing with comparative or international law.

However, it is not enough simply to teach students about foreign law. We must also provide our students with opportunities to experience the culture and study first-hand the legal systems if other countries. Our Tokyo program was created so that students could intensively study Japanese, Asian and international law and learn to recognize the cultural issues that are inextricably intertwined in every cross-border transaction. I think Japan, with its powerful economy and vastly different culture, is the ideal training ground for lawyers who will practice in the 21st century.

In providing this opportunity for our law students to study abroad, we are following the lead of other countries. Each year, many foreign lawyers are sent to American law schools by their governments, companies or law firms to study our legal system and better understand our culture. This year, we have 35 foreign attorneys studying full-time at Temple for an LLM degree. Other countries understand the necessity of developing a corps of lawyers who are conversant with our legal system. Similarly, our country, to preserve its competitive position in world markets, must develop a corps of attorneys who are conversant with the legal system of other countries.

In my most recent negotiation in Tokyo, for the first time in my experiences the opposing party was represented by a Japanese lawyer who studied in the US for a year, which gave the opposition a significant advantage because the lawyer understood some nuances - legal and cultural - which would not have been apparent to those who had not been exposed to both legal systems and cultures. Our Tokyo program trains American law students to recognize cultural issues and to integrate concepts from different legal systems so a deal can successfully move ahead, tools which can be applied anywhere in the world. Any company that manufactures, purchases or sells products or services from a foreign company can benefit from the insights of a lawyer who has attended a program like Temple’s. These graduates are being hired by American and foreign companies and law firms to guide clients through cross-border transactions or to develop clients doing business outside their home countries, Such transactions are becoming more common every day, and I see no end in sight.

Although I have taken 18 business trips to Japan, I have actually seen very little of the country outside the boardroom, so I look forward to spending January to June living in Tokyo, seeing Japan and absorbing the Japanese culture with my wife, Assistant US Attorney Taylor Aspinwall, whose office has graciously permitted her to take a leave, and our 11 year old son, Tommy, who will be studying at an international school in Tokyo. Preparing to go away for six months was exhausting , but I am sure, worth the effort. As rewarding as the time in Japan will be for me personally and professionally, I expect it to be a defining experience for my son. It will be a special pleasure to see Japan through his eyes.

(This article was originally published in Business Philadelphia, Feb.1997)

 

(translation by Vicki L. Beyer)

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Temple University Japan