What we offer
We offer the once in a lifetime opportunity to work and lead a life less ordinary in Japan. We offer a work environment that embodies candor, frankness, diversity, distinctiveness and collegiality. We are the ideal workplace for the candidate that will blossom in a fast-paced, intense, high-pressure & deadline-intensive environment.
This is expected as we offer the once-in-a-lifetime chance to enable driven & committed individuals to orchestrate the unruly endeavors of science, technology, business & law. We are indeed blessed that we enjoy what we do. Our milestone achievements demonstrate the small role that we have played in innovation's past but also an exciting glimpse of innovation's future that the right candidate will help us build together.
Recognizable & Substantial Responsibility
We offer recognizable & substantial responsibility as soon as you can handle it. Most of our clients' matters are staffed leanly, an approach that benefits the clients while at the same time increasing the opportunities for early, significant experience for our newer members.
We offer our recruits an opportunity to navigate new and evolving IP laws and practice, changing client expectations, market pressures and technological change. Like everybody else, we must all be comfortable with change and we offer the rare opportunity to be part of one of the world's leading intellectual property law firms. We offer the ideal venue for the vigorous self-starter who is able to work well independently and collaboratively.
We certainly do not offer a place where the mediocre are coddled and feel comfortable just sticking around. If you treat work like a chore to be gotten over with so you can traipse around talking to trees, animals or whatever, our high energy Firm is not for you. We definitely do not offer a leisurely paced law practice. If you easily crumble in the wake of complicated, high-pressure and difficult work, we are not for you.
Training & Professional Development
We offer on-the-job training, mentoring, and deep immersion in the professional and business skills of client management, matter management and business management. We have regular internal seminars and training workshops presented by experienced senior staff, visiting attorneys and outside experts, providing our Talent with the opportunity to expand or update their practice skills and knowledge.
We are faithfully meritocratic and the key to our performance-driven culture is providing regular candid feedback and evaluation so that everyone can improve.
Our knowledge management system through our online internal database and sharefolder assists our Talent daily in their work and ensures that a common pool of knowledge resources is shared with everyone.
At every advance during your journey with us, we give the relevant training and guidance you need, not just in the hard legal knowledge and practice skills but you will also pick up soft skills such as self-awareness, effective communication, people skills, commercial nous, negotiation skills, assertiveness and how to manage priorities, people and pressure so that you will progressively grow in confidence and poise.
The more skilled and sure-footed you get, the Firm's clients will receive better services, so it is in our interest to ensure that the successful recruit succeeds in their training and development.
Lifelong Career Skills
The transferable skills inculcated at our Firm within the short span of three years will last a lifetime. These lifelong skills are in popular demand by many organizations within commerce, industry, academia and government.
We support the transition of our alumni who've successfully completed their three year contracts to corporate in-house positions, patent examiners, various national professional qualifications as patent & trademark attorneys, patent litigation attorneys, technology managers, university technology transfer officers, graduate law & MBA schools, academia and other technology management positions in the public & private sector.
Some have branched out from intellectual property and have leveraged their familiarity with innovation into new career paths in business, consultancy, valuation, NGOs, international organizations, insurance, banking, healthcare & pharmaceutical regulatory affairs, international trade, entertainment, media or any elite organization that needs and benefits from talent who have a broad knowledge and expert application of legal principles and procedure. In the era of an increasingly volatile regulatory environment, the demand for skills and experience obtained at our firm is only likely to grow.
Moving to Osaka
Moving to Osaka to commence a career is a momentous step undoubtedly. We make the foreign recruit's physical move to Osaka as seamless as possible by our long-standing successful relocation housing program. We have arranged furnished housing with broadband internet access which is ready for immediate occupation upon the recruit's arrival to Osaka. The recruit simply lands in Osaka and moves directly into the furnished apartment on the same day.
In joining us you will be living in a city famous for its easygoing locals, vibrant nightlife and for its supreme epicurean culinary delights. There is more than a grain of truth in the Japanese saying "Kyoto kidaore; Osaka kuidaore" - which means that Kyotoites go bankrupt from buying kimonos whereas Osakans ruin themselves by extravagance in food.
In 2009, the Guardian hailed Osaka as the "most greatest, most exciting, most dynamic food city in the world " with its "irresistible triumvirate of highly addictive, indigenous fast foods." Francois Simon, food critic for Le Figaro, has also suggested that Osaka is the food capital of the world. When you are here, you will understand why Osaka food is one of those extremely rare matters that the French and English agree upon.
Moreover, Osaka is also no slouch in terms of haute cuisine where even the venerable New York Times, in 2012, has marveled that Osaka has "no shortage of fine-dining establishments (the city now boasts 108 total Michelin stars, including five three-star restaurants)."
In addition to being a mecca for foodies, Osaka punches above its weight by any measure, be it in business, industry, science, culture, sport, music, dance and entertainment, clubbing, or almost any unadulterated modern or traditional earthly pleasure.
In Summer 2012, the Economist magazine special report Best Cities Ranking and Report ranked Osaka as the world's third best city in terms of Stability, Healthcare, Culture and Environment, Education and Spatial characteristics. The Spatial aspects of city life included urban form (sprawl, green space), the geographical situation of the city (natural assets, isolation and connectivity), cultural assets and pollution. Tokyo was ranked 10th.
Osaka is the pulsating urban nucleus of the greater metropolitan cluster of Nara, Kyoto, Hyogo and Wakayama, areas with their own unique distinct identities, bucolic greenery, rice paddies, swaying bamboo groves, ancient temples and world heritage sites.
Osaka is one of the main gateways to Japan, which still leads the world in its postmodern rush towards a technology centered future with its quirky robots and addictive manga while seamlessly co-existing with centuries old traditional cultural pursuits like tea ceremony, zen meditation and aikido. You can rave in big city reverie, but then effortlessly sneak a weekend getaway to Japan's many sacred places, mountains or islands to discover the more spiritual side in you and the country.
We are pleased to provide a tantalizing appetizer of the after-work pursuits that await our successful recruits that join us.