Book excerpt: This volume explores major developments in Japanese law over the latter half of the twentieth century and looks ahead to the future. Modeled on the classic work Law in Japan: The Legal Order in a Changing Society (1963), edited by Arthur Taylor von Mehren, it features the work of thirty-five leading legal experts on most of the major fields of Japanese law, with special attention to the increasingly important areas of environmental law, health law, intellectual property, and insolvency. The contributors adopt a variety of theoretical approaches, including legal, economic, historical, and socio-legal. As Law and Japan: A Turning Point is the only volume to take inventory of the key areas of Japanese law and their development since the 1960s, it will be an important reference tool and starting point for research on the Japanese legal system. Topics addressed include the legal system (with chapters on legal history, the legal profession, the judiciary, the legislative and political process, and legal education); the individual and the state (with chapters on constitutional law, administrative law, criminal justice, environmental law, and health law); and the economy (with chapters on corporate law, contracts, labor and employment law, antimonopoly law, intellectual property, taxation, and insolvency). Japanese law is in the midst of a watershed period. This book captures the major trends by presenting views on important changes in the field and identifying catalysts for change in the twenty-first century.