University of Tokyo Professor Emeritus Takashi Uchida has joined Mori Hamada & Matsumoto as of September 1, 2014 in the role of special counsel.

For many years, Mr. Uchida has been engaged in teaching and research of the Civil Code and adjacent laws at the University of Tokyo Graduate Schools for Law and Politics where he established an abundant legacy of research achievements, before taking on central roles in working to reform the law of obligations of the Japanese Civil Code as a Senior Advisor on Legislative Reform of the Ministry of Justice.

With the Civil Code scheduled to be amended in 2015, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto looks forward to providing our clients with even higher levels of legal service by welcoming Mr. Uchida as a special counsel.

I am honored to be joining Mori Hamada & Matsumoto as a special counsel from September 1, 2014. Previously, I have been engaged in research and teaching of the Civil Code at Hokkaido University for 7 years and subsequently the University of Tokyo for 21 years. I have maintained a particular interest in contract law, which has led to my involvement in projects such as the drafting of the Model Law on Electronic Commerce of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and the UNIDROIT (formerly the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) Principles of International Commercial Contracts. When the Ministry of Justice began work aimed at fundamentally reforming the law of obligations for the first time in 120 years, I left the University of Tokyo in October 2007 to be more closely involved, serving as a full-time Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Justice where I was engaged in activities such as running the Legislative Council Committee on the Civil Code (Law of Obligations). Now that the completion of the draft outline of the law of obligations amendments is in sight, I have retired from my full-time position at the Ministry of Justice which spanned 7 years and have been admitted as an attorney-at-law. I am looking forward to using the experience I have gained in areas such as scholarship and legislative drafting to serve as a bridge linking practice and research.