Monday, April 21, 2003. In the last entry, I gave some biographical information. Today, I will talk a little about my day-to-day work. By the way, you might find it interesting to compare what I have to say with the remarks of Jason Cha (http://www.jjcha.net/), an attorney who works at an American firm here.
As a law student, I worked briefly in a different Japanese firm over the 2000-2001 winter break, and I noticed that that firm, like my present employer, tended to skew all work toward the evening. What I mean by that is that the attorneys show up in the mid to late morning and then work until midnight (or later, of course). I suspect the main reason for this is meetings with clients. While there are certainly times when clients want to meet in the mornings, most clients seem to prefer afternoons for in-person meetings and evenings for telephone conversations. Not that I'm collecting data here--this is what I notice when I look up from my work now and then.
Another thing that skews the work toward the evening hours is international work. A lot of faxes and email come in when Europeans and Americans are in the middle of their workdays, and we try to get responses to these out before we go home. (Or maybe the idea is to respond before the guys on the other end of the fax line go home. Law is a competitive service industry, after all, and everyone loves same-day service.)
So, that being the case, I tend to arrive around 9:30 a.m., and most of the time this puts me in the office before the Japanese lawyers. The first thing I do is read all the email printouts that have been routed to me. Yes, I said "email print-outs". For a person, like me, with a library-information-science background, printing out email, especially making copies of printed-out email, is a symptom of information management problems and wasted resources (said resources being: money, storage space, time for printing, handing out, storing, organizing, and searching). However, after watching the system for a while, I realize that it's not so hard to justify for two reasons: (1) Security and confidentiality are far easier to control without a LAN, especially one hooked up to the computers on our desk, which are full of early drafts (in otherwords, dangerous drafts) of documents; (2) As low-tech as possible. In Japan, even more than in the USA, administrative work is done mostly by young women, and young Japanese women seem to change jobs a lot more than men do. A lot of reasons for this come to mind, but for each theory I find too many exceptions, so I will leave that question unanswered for now. Anyway, back to my point: the system is as simple as possible, so that even attorneys and new employees can use it. (Not that many people have trouble with email, but it's easier to get a photocopier fixed than it is to fix a misbehaving document database.)
So, I read the email printouts. A few things need answers, and in these cases I'll either just go ahead and answer for the partner involved (where the answer is clear) or draft a response and leave it for the partner to approve it.
Then I move into more substantial work. Lately I've been reviewing contracts for fairly complex financial projects, and for me, less than a year out of law school, this is more of a chance to watch the masters (the partners) at work than it is a chance to flex my own muscles. On the other hand, since the documents are in English (even though Japanese law usually governs), I seem to earn my weight simply by proofreading and revising for clarity.
I usually get a few serious translation projects each month, too. I've translated a number of Japanese contracts into English. I always find this interesting. On the other hand, if you want to see something weird, compare a regular Japanese contract with a Japanese translation of a really traditional old-fashioned American contract. Japanese don't seem to see the necessity of expressing actions five different ways. If they "give" or "warrant", they only need one word. They don't have to "give, convey, and transfer" or "covenant, warrant, and guarantee".
I have done a few patent-related technical translations, too. Despite my background in the humanities, I've always found science interesting. But reading patents (and translating them) is just a whole different ball of wax. Putting aside all issues of science and engineering, the patent form is one of the most idiosyncratic forms of literature I've ever seen. It's one of those things, like, say, playing blues guitar, that seems hard when you first are introduced to it. Then you realize that there are really only a few elements. And then you realize you can just keep going, deeper and deeper, into this pseudo-simple (or not-so-simple) form. Since my office doesn't actually apply for patents, I doubt I'll have a chance to really get good at this stuff for a while, but it does make an interesting change of pace now and then.
Anyway, as the sun sets, the various documents that need to go to international clients start to head toward me. I fix the English, and often, when the matter is complex or new, I have to get a little education from the Japanese attorney (i.e., how does Japanese arbitration differ from US arbitration?) in order to make sure everything that needs to be communicated actually is communicated. This usually continues for the rest of the evening. Sometime between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m. I get on the subway and head for home, to sleep and then return for another day of the same.
7:19:52 AM 
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