Allen & Overy (A&O) has become the second English firm to form a joint venture with a Japanese firm, just as other foreign firms strengthen their resolve to end local protectionism.
A&O's Tokyo office will now be directly linked to Tokyo firm Akatsuki International Law Office and will be able to deliver local advice, which was previously referred to other firms.
While A&O moves into the new realm of Japanese practice, White & Case and Freshfields are pushing hard for the right to form multinational partnerships in Japan as opposed to joint ventures.
A&O's bengoshi firm is headed by Kaoru Haraguchi, a securitisation specialist, who spent time between 1996 and 1997 working for A&O's projects group in London while on secondment from Japanese banking and securities firm Mitsui Yasuda Wani & Maeda.
Haraguchi left Mitsui Yasuda in March this year to set up his sole practice firm to pave the way for the formation of a joint venture with A&O.
Andrew Castle, a resident partner in A&O's 14-lawyer Tokyo office, said: "We intend to grow the number of bengoshi and we are not ruling out the possibility of another link up with a Japanese firm."
But Castle added that because most major Japanese firms were unwilling to set up joint ventures with Anglo-Saxon firms, A&O would probably aim to make lateral bengoshi hires in the short term.
The other English firm to have a formal joint venture with a bengoshi firm is Freshfields, although several US firms have gone down this route, including White & Case and Baker & McKenzie.
Commenting on his firm's drive to allow full partnerships with local firms, Charles Stevens, managing partner of Freshfields' Tokyo office, said: "We have been restricted to a strangled bonsai office. To get change we will now have to go above the Ministry of Justice and go to the Prime Minister and the Finance Ministry."
In March, The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) rebuffed requests by the international legal community for multinational partnerships to be allowed.