The normally excellent reporter for the New York Times, Norimitsu Onishi, recently wrote a rather bland, meandering article on lawyers in rural Japan.

It is interesting to note the contrasts between Japan and more litigious societies. For example, Onishi states that there are 1/3 as many lawyers, per capita, in Japan than in the U.S. It’s also interesting that the Japanese government intervenes in the concentration and coverage of lawyers in the country.

Thanks to a national campaign to raise the number of lawyers, and to dispatch them to lawyerless corners of Japan, Yakumo welcomed its first one in April.

In Japan, other legal professionals, including notaries and tax accountants, often perform the duties that fall to lawyers in the United States. Still, even including those professions, Japan has only about one-third of the lawyers found in the United States per capita, according to the federation.

Beyond that, half of Japan’s lawyers are concentrated in Tokyo, leaving only one lawyer for every 30,000 Japanese outside the capital, according to the federation.

Like many Japanese who consult lawyers, the four seemed embarrassed about doing so

“Japanese by nature don’t want to publicize their problems,” Mr. Hirai explained. “And coming to see a lawyer is to admit that there are problems inside your home or workplace.”