For those who have started watching or are about to begin watching FujiTV Winter 2023 drama "Themis no Kyoushitsu" starring Kitagawa Keiko, are you wondering about why those students are studying in law school and the reasons why they are so uptight about making sure that they can qualify for taking the bar exam? If so, it will be good to have some prior knowledge about the Japanese bar exam system so as to help you understand the drama better and what's driving the students and teachers to behave in the ways depicted in the story.
To begin with, the bar exam is what those aspiring to become lawyers, prosecutors and judges will have to pass before they get the right to take on one of these jobs. However, not everyone gets the right to take such an exam in the first place so you would have to go through 1 of 2 routes available to get that "entrance ticket".
How do you qualify to take the bar exam?
The first route is for those who have already graduated from university with a bachelor's degree but your major does not necessarily have to be a law-related field. As such, even if you had studied something unrelated to law for your bachelor's degree, you can still switch paths like what Hiiragi Shizuku (Kitagawa Keiko) did since she studied economics in university.
And if you look at the cast chart for "Themis no Kyoushitsu", all the students are at least 23 years old which means that they only entered law school after graduating from university.
For these university graduates, they have to enter what is called "law school" i.e. the graduate school for law and pass the postgraduate course before being qualified to take the bar exam. If the student has never studied law before, the postgraduate course will last for 3 years while those experienced in the study of law will only need to spend 2 years in law school.
As depicted in the drama, Seinan Law School isn't exactly the cream of the crop and there is only a very small number of graduates who actually make it to take and pass the bar exam. And to begin with, passing the law school course is not a given so before these students can even stand at the starting line for the bar exam, they need to clear the postgraduate course first. That explains the cutthroat competition in Seinan and why Aoi (Yamada Yuuki) focuses solely on delivering what the students want - the knowledge and information needed for them to get the qualification right to take and ultimately, to pass the bar exam.
The alternative path for those who may not have the necessary educational qualifications will be the preliminary exam. As such. regardless of whether you graduated from junior high, senior high school or pulled out halfway from university, you can take this exam which upon passing, earns you the right to take the bar exam. Technically, anyone can take it, regardless of their qualifications, place of residence or even nationality. This helps those who aren't able to go to law school due to various circumstances to have a chance at becoming a member of the legal circle.
The preliminary exam consists of three sections - short answer questions, thesis and oral. Based on past year's figures, the average passing rate for the preliminary exam is around 4% which suggests that it is extremely difficult to get the qualification right for the bar exam through this route. This is likely due to the differing education standards in the candidate pool as well as the fact that many, if not all are self-studying for this exam. However, among those who actually go on to take the bar exam, the passing rate for the past three years (2020 - 2022) were as high as 89%, 94% and 98%. Comparatively, the overall pass rate for the bar exam from 2020 to 2022 were only 39.15%, 41.50% and 45.52%.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of a drama character who chose this path would be Kuryu Kouhei (Kimura Takuya) from the "HERO" series. His highest educational qualification was only junior high school since he had quit senior high school and he passed the bar exam to become a prosecutor without going to law school. And in more recent times, Iruma Michio (Takenouchi Yutaka) from "Ichikei no Karasu" also graduated from junior high school only yet he became a lawyer without going through law school and even switched lines later to become a judge. As such, their routes to becoming legal professionals may seem unconventional or unthinkable but it is entirely possible in real life.
What is the bar exam?
Unlike the preliminary exam, there is no oral segment. However, if you fail the short answer section, your thesis section will not be accepted for grading even though you can still take the thesis exam. With just one set of scores, passing the bar exam is impossible.
For the short answer section, there are 2 sets of passing criteria i.e. a score of more than 40% out of the full marks for each of the subjects and an overall score of more than 65.7% of the full marks for the entire exam. What this means is, you can't just ace certain subjects and fail the rest. As seen from the drama so far, this is why some of the students who are weak in certain subjects are so stressed because they can't just concentrate on the subjects they excel in and flunk the rest.
For the thesis aspect, it takes place over 3 days with 5 questions to be answered on 3 mandatory subjects i.e. public law, civil law and criminal law plus 1 optional subject from 8 choices such as bankruptcy, economic, intellectual property, labour and environmental laws. In the event that any of the questions get a score of lower than 20% of the full marks, the candidate would have failed the exam.
The bar exam typically takes place in May and results are announced in September.
Be it whether you are taking the law school route or preliminary exam route, there is a limit in terms of time allowed and number of attempts to attempt the bar exam. Counting from the year when the candidate graduates from law school or passes the preliminary exam, he/she can try for the bar exam up to 5 years from that date. And since this exam is held only once a year, that means everyone can only try up to 5 times.
If you remember from "Ishiko to Haneo", Ishiko had failed the bar exam for 4 times and had to make her last attempt before time ran out for her. That means you cannot keep taking the same exam for an unlimited number of times. And that's also probably why Aoi had told one of his students who was already 30 and faced with the last chance to just "give up" especially if he felt that the student was unlikely to make it and shouldn't keep wasting his time and effort.
Profile of those who made it
According to the released statistics, the gender ratio of those who passed was 3:1 with men being the majority. The average age at the time of passing the entire exam was 28.5 years old which makes sense considering that a typical university graduate at 22/23 years old would probably spend another 3 years in law school before taking the first bar exam. And if you factor in the 1-year internship and taking the completion exam, the candidate should be around 28 years old by the time everything is completed.
However, there are some university students who choose to take the bar exam through the preliminary exam route before graduation. As such, the youngest candidate to have passed the exam is a Year 1 student from Keio University who was only 18 years and 3 months old at the time of the 2021 exam. The previous record holder at 19 years and 4 months old in 2018 was also from Keio.
If you look at the number of successful candidates from various universities' law schools from 2016 to 2022, Keio has produced the highest number in 4 years while Kyoto University did it twice and University of Tokyo once. Number of candidates who passed range from 119 to 155 per year for these top universities.
As such, when they mention in the drama that Seinan had only 3 successful candidates in the previous year, that gives you an idea of its standard.
But that's not the end of the story...
Even after passing the bar exam, there's more to come.
Successful candidates gain the right to do internships at law firms, prosecutors' offices and courts for a year after they pass the bar exam. However, that doesn't mean that they get the right to become lawyers, prosecutors and judges after completing the internship.
There is actually another "completion exam" to be cleared before they finally can join the legal profession. As such, this is sometimes nicknamed as the "second bar exam".
Now that you have read this, I hope that you will have a better idea of the underlying setting for "Themis no Kyoushitsu" and this will help you to understand and enjoy the drama better.
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