Cuts in government subsidies to law schools that suffer from sluggish enrollment of students and poor bar exam passage rates are likely to trigger the closure or consolidation of many of such schools created just a decade ago in a major reform of the nation's system for training legal professionals. One concern is that such developments could result in a concentration of law schools in large metropolitan areas, limiting education opportunities for aspiring students in other parts of the country.

The education ministry last week decided on the amount of subsidies to law schools for fiscal 2015 under a new system that grades each institute according to its enrollment situation and students' bar exam performances. Of the 52 schools under review, the amount was reduced for 42 institutes and increased for eight others. Seven schools have had their subsidies cut by 50 percent from fiscal 2014 levels, while 12 others' subsidies were slashed by 40 percent.

The seven schools facing the 50 percent cut were given the lowest grade in the ministry's assessment, and subsidies for them would be terminated beginning in fiscal 2016 unless they take steps to correct the situation, such as forming an alliance and sharing curriculum with other schools. Cuts to subsidies — which are used to pay for salaries of teaching staff and other expenses — will have a serious financial impact on the management of schools that have seen declining enrollment of students in recent years.

Subsidies will be increased by 35 percent for the law school at Waseda University, 30 percent for Hitotsubashi University, 25 percent for the University of Tokyo, and 20 percent for Kyoto University and Keio University. Most of the schools that received high grades in the assessment for the subsidies are located in major urban areas.

Since 2004, universities across Japan opened 74 law schools under the government's policy — as part of the judicial system reform — of boosting the number of law professionals in this country to prepare for anticipated increase in demand for legal services. The government set a target of increasing the number of successful applicants to the bar exam each year— which stood at roughly 1,000 in the early 2000s — to 3,000 by 2010. The law schools were intended to help bring people from a wide spectrum of society to the legal profession, including mid-career types and graduates of university programs other than law departments.

The reforms produced a growing numbers of lawyers, but demand for their services did not increase as anticipated, resulting in a glut of legal professionals who found no jobs after completing law school and passing the bar exam. The poor employment prospects in turn sharply reduced student enrollment at many of the law schools — especially the ones whose graduates performed poorly in the bar exam — and badly damaged their bottom lines. Of the 74 law schools, 23 have stopped accepting new students and many of them are expected to close once current students have completed their course. Three universities made the decision last fall after the education ministry gave low grades to their institutions in the new assessment. More are seen as likely to follow.

The government's policy appears to lack consistency. The target of increasing successful bar exam applicants to 3,000 a year was withdrawn in 2013 after it was never achieved. Meanwhile in 2011, the government abolished a system in place since 1947 to pay salaries to legal trainees who are required to spend a year in training after passing the bar exam — on the grounds that it cannot financially afford to pay wages for the increasing number of trainees — and instead offering interest-free loans to help cover their expenses during the training period.

A series of damages suits have been filed by lawyers who argued that termination of salaries for legal trainees, even though they are banned from holding side work while in training, violates the rights of the trainees to engage in jobs. Some of the plaintiffs complain that they had to incur additional debt during their training periods after taking out student loans to pay their way through law school.

The preliminary test for the bar exam introduced in 2011 is viewed as another factor that reduced enrollments at law schools. Previously only law school graduates were allowed to take the bar exam. The preliminary test was intended for people who could not afford to attend law schools but still want to become lawyers. Critics, however, say that the test is merely used as a shortcut method to taking the bar exam, especially among graduates of university law departments. The bar exam pass rate is much higher among those who have taken the preliminary test than the average for law school graduates.

Closing and consolidating law schools that cannot maintain quality of education for students will be inevitable. Schools given low grades by the ministry need to make efforts to improve their curriculum, including through alliances with other institutes. The government is also urged to extend various support for such efforts by these schools, so that opportunities for training of legal professionals would not eventually be reduced to a handful of law schools in urban areas. Otherwise, the very purpose of the reform — to build up a rich layer of legal professionals from diverse backgrounds to meet people's demands for legal services — would be defeated.