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Supporting Community: Saitama Prefectural Urawa Girls' Upper Secondary School Study Session, Career Guidance, and Roundtable Discussion
Since 2022, the legal education team at Nishimura & Asahi (GKJ) has been providing ongoing support for an inquiry-based cross-disciplinary study by second-year students.
In 2025, 13 lawyers—Kazuyoshi Furusumi, Shigeru Sasaki, Takeshi Nemoto, Mariko Mimura, Takahiro Kato, Shiori Akiyama, Shiori Komatsu, Yuki Matsumoto, Megumi Miyano, Sakito Muraishi, Haruka Sakaki, Mayu Shindo, and Haruka Sugimoto—provided support for this program throughout the year.
On June 10, some of the above-mentioned lawyers visited the school to provide face-to-face career guidance at a roundtable discussion.
During the career guidance session, moderated by Tokyo partner Takeshi Nemoto, Tokyo associates Haruka Sakaki, Mayu Shindo, and Shiori Akiyama shared their experiences on why they decided to become lawyers, their paths to becoming one, next steps in a law career, the work they do, and the fulfilling aspects of their jobs.
The attendees also split into small groups and answered detailed questions from students. Discussions covered issues like how to become a legal professional and, from students who already planned to pursue a career in law, how to become a lawyer that specializes in a particular field.
After the roundtable discussions, students shared comments, such as:
“I did not know that lawyers were involved in such a wide range of practices.”
“I learned that there are many different paths for a lawyer.”
“This career guidance and the roundtable discussions have motivated me.”
We hope this guidance could help the participating students to consider their future careers and help increase the number of women who choose to become legal professionals in Japan.

Kaz is a partner in our Corporate practice. He has strong expertise in various M&A transactions including outbound/inbound deals. He is unique given his broad activities throughout his career, such as professional experience in a management consulting firm and a private equity fund, as well as the start-up of our Hanoi office in Vietnam. Leveraging his insights gained from this experience, he always provides clients with tailored services in a timely and flexible manner.