An interview with Hiroo Atsumi, Senior Partner, Atsumi & Sakai Â
With David Adams, Managing Editor, Top Ranked Legal Â
Hiroo Atsumi is the founding partner of Atsumi & Sakai (previously Atsumi & Partners), a multi-award-winning full service independent Tokyo law firm. He has extensive experience in real estate finance, banking, capital markets and structured/asset finance, and has represented most major Japanese financial institutions, and many major international investment banks on high value and complex banking and finance transactions. Mr. Atsumi has been frequently recognised by legal and financial commentators as one of Japan’s leading finance lawyers.
Please tell me about the firm.
I founded the firm 30 years’ ago in 1994. There were very few members of the firm at that time but I had some clients, mainly financial institutions like banks and security houses. In the beginning, we were particularly strong in banking and finance as well as securitization and other complicated financing structures like project finance, real estate finance, and asset-based finance.
At the time, it was quite easy to find good lawyers in the UK or US to handle such matters, but in Japan in the mid-90s it was quite difficult to find a Japanese lawyer good at handling such things. The firm was quite small early on, maybe five to ten lawyers but we had a good reputation in the field and handled some very large financings. As our reputation grew, so did the firm and we began expanding. We started out in a neighbourhood called Chiyoda-ku, Kioicho in Tokyo, which was one of the business areas in Tokyo, but by 2003 we had outgrown the office when we reached more than 20 lawyers and moved to Chiyoda-ku, Uchisaiwaicho, which is considered to be one of the most prestigious financial areas in Tokyo. Since then, we have grown to more than 250 lawyers (and by the end of next year we will have 300 hundred lawyers). We have offices in Tokyo, Fukuoka, New York, London, Frankfurt (in the form of sort of franchise arrangement with Mr. Frank Becker), Brussels and Ho Chi Minh City.
So, before we moved here, we were what you might call a boutique law firm handling a very narrow field of practice areas, but we decided to expand to become a full service law firm almost 20 years ago. We embraced the joint enterprise with foreign lawyers when that was allowed in April, 2005. We were pioneers in this regard, as we were the first Japanese law firm to admit non-Japanese to the partnership. We started with a partnership with Bonnie Dixon and she is still at the firm.
In 2008, we experienced the so-called Lehman shock that ran through the financial markets. At the time, our main area of work was in securitisation and this area was particularly badly affected. But since we were already well on the way to becoming a full-service law firm by then, we were successful in mitigating against the worst of the economic downturn.
Our growth has led to us being a very diverse firm in the Japanese market. We embraced the changing law on foreign lawyers and made a number of very successful and diverse hires along the way. Our recruiting strategy was to hire, in addition to a fairly limited number of new graduate associates directly coming from the Legal Training Research Institute each year, the best and most appropriate person for the required job task laterally, leading to a very diverse workforce. This may be one of the reasons for our success leading to where we are now, i.e. one of the top law firms in Japan. In some credible legal media , we are deemed within at least top 6 law firms of Japan.
How did your international expansion come about?
We started with the London office more than ten years ago. Among our foreign attorneys was a very experienced lawyer named Daniel Hounslow. He worked at Norton Rose and Clifford Chance and then joined us as a partner in the mid-2000s, but for personal reasons he needed to move back to the UK in the early 2010s. At that time, he still had a fairly large pile of his own clients. So we thought that the best way to retain such clients would be to open a London office. This was a successful move, as right from the start we had clients and began to grow it. We do not represent many Japanese clients in the UK, as that might mean competing with UK law firms, many of which are our clients and refer us work, but we work with such law firms and also UK companies doing deals or projects in Japan. The same is true of our other overseas offices. We have been open in London for more than 10 years now and in May 2024 we opened an office in Brussels and Vietnam?
What’s your role in the firm?
I am the founder of the firm. The firm is not a partnership, but a professional corporation, and I am the major equity holder. Some other people have a smaller share of such equity too but I am effectively the owner so I can make important decisions by myself if that is necessary. However, I do not like to exercise my power as a major equity holder. Usually, I leave important matters to be resolved by the other partners engaged in the management of this firm, and such important matters are to be decided at so called the Management Committee.
Does your personal practice still centre on complex financial matters?
Actually, I only really step in if requested by the lawyers here or by a client. I don’t have to get involved very often as we have many very good, highly specialised lawyers. These days the management and administration of the firm is much more important for me. So I look at the overall strategy, the day-to-day running of the firm, as well as ESG and diversity. How and where we play a responsible role in society as a whole is a very important topic for me. We do a lot of pro bono work and have an entire team dedicated to that. We also have a lot of language skills here at the firm: English, German, and Chinese, among others. There are a lot of foreign people living, working and visiting Japan and when earlier this year there was a big earthquake, we could help foreigners better understand things in their own languages.
How would you describe your management style?
I look after big picture things like the finance and governance of the firm, the structure of management of the firm and so on. I decide on what areas of law and what industries we service – what to grow and how to grow them. Even what areas to abandon.
Of course, I have people to help me. We have an Executive Committee and a Management Committee. The Executive Committee deals with more day to day things and can move very fast and take quick decisions and actions on the smaller things. Leaving the Management Committee to focus on more important things.
Are you seeing any current trends in the market? Are there any particular growth areas?
There are many, actually. Japan was said to be dormant for many years, but I think things are changing now. Probably due to the weakness of the Yen, there is more and more activity on the inbound investment side. The big global investment firms  and private equity funds are becoming more active in the Japanese market. Also, Japanese companies have improved their governance, and overseas investors are aware of that, leading to more investments in terms of shares, so share prices are increasing.
Some particular areas are growing very fast. For example, M&A. our firm used to be weak in M&A , but over the last five years or so our firm has become very  activite in Japan and grew quite strongly,and we are in some credible legal media ranked at Tier 1 or Tier 2.  Also, private funds, investment fund areas have grown quickly over the same period. Now we have a big department dedicated to working on funds. I think a few of the other leading Japanese firms have similarly big teams, too, so that shows you where the market is now. Actually, there is a “golden triangle†among M&A, funds and financing, which seems somewhat interrelated. If a firm is strong in these three areas at the same time it would become stronger in the market.
Other growth areas are anything relating to businesses focusing on the needs of elderly people – life sciences, pharmaceuticals and health care, for example. Businesses in these areas are growing quickly and we are seeing the work we do for them increase, as well. We are also very busy in IP related areas, and not just with patent work but with the softer side of IP too like trade marks, copyright , designs,unfair trade practice and ambush marketing etc.etc.. This is linked to a corresponding increase in the activities of sports, media and entertainment work we are seeing. These are quite a new areas in Japan that are expanding rapidly.
Japan is very strong in subculture, too, like anime, games, Â music and films,etc. There are many strong Japanese companies in these sectors, but foreign companies are also rushing into this space. So, our work, our share of the pie in these areas is growing and our team size is increasing to take advantage of that.
Do you have any professional highlights that stand out for you in such a long career?
I started this firm 30 years ago, as a small firm with just a few people and grew it to be one of the largest firms in Japan. Maybe we are seventh or eighth in terms of size and among the firms ,main areas of services are corporate we would be in the top five when it comes to quality and reputation. I am very proud of that. My approach is to not to strictly control people but to encourage them to develop and embrace new thinking. And the result is us adopting new ideas that no other firms here do. For example, we have a research institute called the  Policy Research Institute. We do not generate any fees from the institute. It does  research and study into new ideas and policies particularly in new areas of law and business. We publish news and views and analysis online and whether or not the government or businesses take up the new ideas, that is up to them. We remain neutral and involve external researchers and academics from universities and other istitutions. I don’t think any other law firm in Japan does anything like that. I am sure it enhances our reputation.
What are the best things about living and working in in Tokyo from a personal and professional perspective?
Tokyo is one of the world’s biggest cities and new people, new ideas and creativity pour into the city. The way Japanese people think is quite flexible and this allows us to take advantage of new things. It makes Tokyo a very exciting place to live and work. There are lots of international people here, too, both living here and visiting, so meeting them offers opportunities. I don’t feel the need to travel much anymore as Tokyo offers so much. Also, one must be conscious of the environment and sustainability these days. For travel within Japan, it may be faster to fly, but I think it’s more energy efficient to take the bullet train in some cases.
Why did you get into law in the first place? Are you from a legal family?
No, my father was a civil servant in the government working for the Ministry of Health and Welfare. He had nothing to do with the law. I studied law at Tokyo University in 1968 and in those days there was some kind of revolution by students and many strikes. You might recall the situation in the US during the Vietnam War or even the student reactions to the Isreal/Gaza conflict more recently. Similar things happened in Tokyo in ’68.  Younger people around that time had some kind of revolutionary mindset like US hippies, for example. So, I had no chance to sit down and study law because the university was closed at the time and for about two years. If it went on much longer, I think I would have followed my father into government work or maybe business. But I felt that lawyers had more liberty to think about many things or give out, you know, freedom and discretion in their working lives and that’s why I continued to try to study and qualify. Eventually I managed to graduate. Normally it took about four years to qualify as a layer but it took me six years because of the closures.
Two years is a long time to be in limbo. What did you do while waiting for law school to reopen?
Well it was a good chance to think about things. I worked for various companies on a part time basis just to make some money. I watched a lot of films and listened to a lot of music. I spent a couple of years enjoying myself because I couldn’t really work properly or study.
Looking back now, with all your life experience, is there anything else you would have liked to have done other than be a lawyer?
Yes, I would have liked to have been a promoter. A music promoter for rock concerts or festivals. It should be attractive to me as it would mean running huge projects, making money and then moving on to the next thing when the project is over. I didn’t really know where to start back then but frankly I regret not trying.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I love music and spend some time listening to new music. I buy it, download it from the web, look at YouTube and so on. I love listening to live music, especially new acts and from every genre.
I like walking and nature too. We have many parks in Tokyo and Japan, so I like to walk through those. I live to the west of Tokyo where there are lots of trees and flowers and rivers. I enjoy experiencing the nature here together with my family.
You are a Japanese man of a certain age and a successful lawyer, almost the very definition of conservative. When you tell people about your diverse musical tastes are they surprised?
Well I suppose lawyers, especially corporate lawyers, are generally conservative in a business setting but I do not think I am that conservative and such mind-set may have been exceptional as a lawyer. My experiences in my youth shaped my personality and this is reflected also in my work, I guess.
Did you ever combine your loves of music and securitization like with the rights to Queen’s or David Bowie’s music for example?
I would have liked to have done that but at the moment Japanese financial institutions may not do that sort of thing. As a firm, we are moving strongly into the entertainment sector and we are taking on more and more entertainment clients so maybe that’s something for the future.
What is your firm’s strategy for the future ?
We are committed to innovation in the practice of law under the slogan “Creative Thinking & Innovative Solutions”. We recognize that technology will have a significant impact on the legal market, and that our efforts must include identifying technologies and applications which we can utilize, as well as developing them in a way that fits our work.
Although there are some difficult aspects in the current use of AI due to confidentiality obligations and copyrights, we are beginning to use AI in areas where such problems do not arise and where they can be handled reasonably.
We are already utilizing widely adopted AI tools for tasks such as contract review and translation to improve work efficiency, in particular by associates and staff. We also use generative AI in areas where it can be used efficiently enough without using confidential information, such as for researching public information, drafting newsletters, and internal management tasks. Further, we are preparing to expand the scope of use of generative AI, focusing on areas where it can be most effective, such as in the preparation and review of documents used frequently in M&A due diligence and litigation work.
We believe that the use of such technologies will bring significant added value to legal services. On the other hand, technology is not equally well-suited for all tasks, and it is also necessary to value areas in which human experts have great strengths, such as interpersonal work, non-routine tasks, and cases requiring new lines of logical thinking. Even in areas where AI excels, full automation by AI is not necessarily easy, and we believe appropriate collaboration with experts based on the “human in the loop” concept to be necessary.
We intend to further enhance the mentoring of young attorneys and staff members within the firm in order to expand the use of such futuristic technologies in our office. We believe that it is a modern demand for law firms to require professional skills that fit the current work environment. One example of our AI use cases is the launch with Deloitte and Kyoto University of a project to develop an AI to reproduce the personality of a legal scholar for use in learning and teaching students and young professionals, which has been announced in a press release. As previously mentioned,we have also established the Policy Research Institute to promote various research activities. In addition to expanding the knowledge of our attorneys and developing human resources within the firm, the institute also plays a role in helping us transform the technological aspects of our practice.
One of the remaining challenges for the future is how to develop a framework for collaboration with technology companies. We expect that it will be necessary to accelerate efforts, including the establishment of a new organization within or outside the firm that is capable of using technology effectively while taking into consideration the protection of confidentiality obligations.
Ultimately, it is necessary to properly identify effective technologies, and to proceed with initiatives at the appropriate time and at the appropriate cost. As such, we will continue to pursue initiatives while keeping an eye on not only the advances in technology and use cases but also the trends of the legal sector in Japan and abroad.
