As of May 2024, South Toranomon Law Offices is now STLM Law Offices.
The Firm’s original foundation dates back to 1948, while Japan was under occupation of the Allies after the World War II, when Mr. Tadao Ohno established Law Office of Tadao Ohno in Tokyo as a solo practice. A few years later, Mr. Kazuhide Harada, another founding father of the Firm, started Furnes, Sato, Harada & Matsui, one of the first international firms in Tokyo. (George Furnes was one of a handful of American attorneys admitted to the Japanese Bar in the early 1950's because of their earnest representation of war defendants during the Tokyo War Trial.)
Over the years, several of the firm's members have served as Lecturers at the Legal Research & Training Institute, the mandatory institute to obtain a qualification to practice law in Japan, administered by Supreme Court of Japan in cooperation with the Bar Associations.
In 1975, Mr. Harada left to found Harada & Hayakawa, with Professor Takeo Hayakawa, a law professor at Kobe University, but because of the close friendship and respect between Mr. Ohno and Mr. Harada, which were shared by many attorneys of the respective two firms, they often worked together and started sharing office space in 1989.
In 1995, the two law firms merged into one firm, thereby adopted its current name of “South Toranomon”. Since then, the Firm has grown and been providing its client with broad range of legal services, with its tradition of the un-compromised commitment to excellence. The firm has a particularly strong reputation in bankruptcy, litigation and dispute resolution and has successfully represented clients in breakthrough copyright cases before the Supreme Court of Japan. The firm is also unusual in the business law community for its willingness to undertake White Collar Crime cases.
Japan
