2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

How does The Concept of Mind Work in Legal-Counseling Process?: A Socio-legal Study on Legal Practice based on Clinical Psychology

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23830100
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Fundamental law
Research Institution	Kyoto Women's University
Principal Investigator	YAMADA Keiko 京都女子大学, 法学部, 講師 (80615063)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2012
Keywords	法律相談 / 法の心理学化 / 弁護士 / 司法書士
Research Abstract	Recently, a new model of legal profession whose legal practice is based on clinical psychology appears as the socio-legal theories of Legal-Counseling(LC) and ADR are more developed in Japan. This study tries to examine how those legal professions practice legal work actually and what differences are between legal practice based on clinical psychology and one not based on. I conducted the case study through qualitative interviews with some legal professions-lawyer and judicial scrivener- practicing LC.The case study reveals that (1) the concept of LC is transfigure and/or ambiguous because each legal profession re-constructs the concept in terms of her/his orientation for cases she/he deals with, and (2) the variation of the concept impacts some procedural aspects rather than substantive ones of legal advice which legal professions provide for clients.