Education

• Tokyo Univ(LL.B)
• Nagoya Univ (LL.M)
• New York Univ (Visiting Scholar)
• American Univ (LL.M) (International Human Rights Law)

Bar admission

• Japan, admitted in 2003
• New York, admitted in 2011

Professional experience

 Attorney at law

• Aichi Shimin Law Offices 2003-2015
• Fukuoka International Law Offices 2015-2017

Koichi Inamori International Law Office 2017-present 

Faculty member

 Aichi Univ School of Law 2004-2008

Committee member-

 Japanese Bar Association

• International human rights committee (discussing and dealing with human rights problems in Japan and other nations) 

Languages available: English, Japanese

*We also have Chinese-speaking staff available for China-related inquiries.

Areas of Expertise

My areas of expertise are foreign national cases and visa-related cases.

We would like to specialize in medical malpractice cases, tax cases, and patent cases.

We handle a large number of bankruptcy, divorce, and traffic accident cases.

I am interested in corporate legal affairs (tax litigation including international taxation, patent litigation, and international commercial arbitration. 

In other words, dispute resolution rather than preventive legal services) and entrepreneurial support. In addition, cases involving foreigners or foreign nationals with respect to all of them. 

Also, divorce between a foreigner and a Japanese, division of property in a foreign country, corporate legal affairs of a company managed by a foreigner, etc.

Divorce Cases

We handle both divorces between foreigners and divorces between Japanese and foreigners. We also handle cases where the couple's assets reside overseas.

As a cautions, there are some countries that do not recognize Japan's divorce by mutual consent or mediation, so there are cases where we dare to get a court decision and have it recognized in other countries. In countries that do not recognize collaborative divorces, even if you can prove that you had a collaborative divorce in Japan, you will have to start divorce proceedings from scratch.

Inheritance Cases

We handle cases where the decedent (the deceased) is a foreigner, where there are foreigners among the heirs, and where the inherited property is located in a foreign state.
 

Criminal Cases

We also handle cases involving foreign nationals who have been arrested. We can communicate with the suspect in English and explain the situation directly to family members in the foreign country.

Corporate Legal Affairs

We are in the business of assisting Japanese companies that want to expand overseas and helping companies from overseas that want to expand into Japan. Eventually, we plan to find an office in another country to partner with or even open a branch office directly.

Other

Other general problems related to foreigners, such as overstays, traffic accidents, visa acquisition, labor cases (including technical intern issues), etc.

Here is an overview of the legal fees involved in any case request. All fees that appear are exclusive of taxes.

First, there are two main types of attorney's fees: fixed fees and hourly fees. The fixed fee system is a contract in which the total amount to be paid is known from the beginning. The hourly system, also known as a time charge, is a contract in which you pay only for the amount of work done by the lawyer, at an hourly rate (in my case, 20,000 yen per hour). Basically, I contract with individual clients on a flat fee basis and with corporate clients on an hourly basis (we can discuss this here).

For the hourly fee, there is no particular explanation, just that the client pays the actual costs, such as postage, afterwards.

As for the fixed fee system, it is broadly divided into an initiation fee, a remuneration fee, actual expenses, and a daily allowance.

The start-up fee is the first payment received when the case is initiated, and is non-refundable regardless of the outcome of the case.

The remuneration fee is literally a contingency fee, and is paid when a favorable result is obtained for the client, for example, 10% of the 10 million yen recovered from the other party. It is important to note that sometimes, for example, the fee is paid even if the client does not actually receive any money from the other party, such as when a divorce is granted in a divorce suit.

Actual expenses are the costs actually incurred, such as postage and transportation costs.

Per diem is the cost of traveling a long distance.


 The starting fees and remuneration vary depending on the case. Here we will explain the starting fees and remuneration for a typical monetary claim case, such as a request for the return of money lent or a claim for compensation for damages (basically, the same as the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' Standards for Attorney's Remuneration, etc., which existed in the past).

In the case of a lawsuit

Starting fee

If the amount of economic profit of the case is

Less than 3 million yen
8% of the economic profit

If the amount exceeds 3 million yen and is less than 30 million yen 
5% plus 90,000 yen

If the amount exceeds 30 million yen but is less than 300 million yen  
3% plus 690,000 yen

If exceeding 300 million yen 
2% plus 3.69 million yen

The minimum starting fee is 200,000 yen

Remuneration

If the amount of economic profit of the case is

3,000,000 yen or less
 16% of the economic profit

If the amount exceeds 3 million yen and is less than 30 million yen
10% plus 180,000 yen

If the amount exceeds 30 million yen but is less than 300 million yen
6% plus 1.38 million yen

If exceeding 300 million yen
4% plus 7.38 million yen


For conciliation cases and settlement negotiations

Same as 1. However, each amount may be reduced by two-thirds.

When accepting a case from settlement negotiation to conciliation, or from settlement negotiation or conciliation to litigation, one half of the amount in 1.

The minimum amount of starting fee is 200,000 yen
 

To give a specific example, in the case of a case in which the party to whom 10 million yen was lent does not return the money, the starting fee is 590,000 yen (1,000 x 0.05 + 9) if the case goes to trial out of the blue, and 880,000 yen (700 x 0.1 + 1) if a judgment is rendered requiring payment of 7 million yen or a settlement is reached requiring 7 million yen to be paid. 8). It is important to note here that the payment of compensation becomes obligatory when a judgment or settlement is reached. In other words, even if the other party does not actually pay, the remuneration will still accrue.


Next, in the same example, if the client wants us to negotiate with the other party without going to trial, the starting fee will be 393,333 yen (590,000 x 2/3). If the negotiations break down and the case goes to trial, an additional starting fee of 295,000 yen (590,000 x 1/2) will be charged.


In other words, the total initiation fee that must be paid will be 685,333 yen, which is more than you would pay if you were to file for trial out of the blue.


However, in a sense, this is only natural. In the case of a trial from negotiation, there is the additional work of negotiating with the other party, so the cost is also higher.


Herein lies one difficulty when hiring a lawyer. In other words, if you know from the beginning that it is futile to negotiate, it is cheaper to go to trial, but a trial can be a lengthy process, so if the case is easy to negotiate, it is better to start with negotiation.