Developmental Processes of Corporate Legal Staffs in Japan : The Pluralizing Mechanism on Legal Practices within an Organization
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概要
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The two topics I have discussed suggest the following. First, the role of a legal staff and a legal section performs is defined by their relationships with the other divisions and the results of their interaction during projects or other activities. Second, legal issues are not necessarily handled only by the staffs labeled "legal" or the staff of the section labeled "legal" within a corporation. The members involved in each project are able to make someone perform the role by defining what needs to be done, even if it were ambiguous. As a result, the role of legal staffs can be determined through the interaction of the participants. These findings clearly show that certain interactional processes produce and define the contents and characters of legal practices and at the same time determine who performs the role. These are therefore the processes of interactions found in the work which the persons exercising legal practices are involved in. In other words, within the process from the conceptualization of the project, to its development in various ways, the members involved, by interacting with each other, determine the role which may be called legal practices. Who performs this role depends on the circumstances surrounding the work when it is decided. Of course, consulting outside counsel is one method. But at the same time, making someone who is a member perform it is also a possible way. In addition to such realistic responses, it seems to me that the following cases are the results of the same kind of processes. That is, the case where someone is assigned to act as the legal staff within each division, the case where a staff member was lured from a legal section and internalized in the other division to treat legal issues within it, and the case where, in order to identify and respond to legal affairs immediately, a legal division was separated or divided into each line division. A more important point in those cases is that legal work occurred in various situations within a corporation, and then the responsibility for it was determined by the members involved, and the person who was suitable for it was decided and located through interactions among them in each situation. These practices performed in individual projects are day to day practices, and such practices themselves include the possibility of making various persons handle legal issues in various situations. Since, when it is considered at a level of an organization in which different members handle various affairs, legal practices are performed by a plurality through the processes consisting of interactional processes which produce and define the contents and characters legal practices, and which decide the person who performs the role. It seems to operate within a corporation as a mechanism to pluralize persons and sections who perform legal practices. To focus on the development of corporate legal staffs means that attention has been paid to such interactional processes and that such process have been conducted in various settings. These practices enable their existence to be sustained. Though it is too complex a subject to be treated here in detail, the practices to mention them and which try to make clear their existence also seem to affect their development. Finally, I will comment on some implications of by conclusion. Above all, I am certain that the mechanism which pluralizes the performer of legal practices is build into a corporation's organization. I am also certain of the existence of the possibility that various lawyers will be produced in each situation. The main point is that lawyers, including de facto lawyers, are a social production of interactional processes by members, and are not determined only by academic careers or formal qualifications. Is this an example of Japanese uniqueness? I do not think so. Though I selected corporate legal staffs in Japanese corporations as a case study, the process which produce and sustain such staffs are created by very mundane and easy practices which can be seen everywhere. Within these processes, the role which can be called legal practices is produced and characterized, and, of course, such processes characterize lawyers themselves. To understand the many kinds of de facto lawyers which exist, it is useful to apply the viewpoint of interactional processes, which I have done. Especially when the business world is the subject, we should shed more light on the processes within a corporate organization. Then, research findings will also be linked to more interesting agenda such as organization and law, organization and professions, and the theory of the profession itself.
- 2006-03-30