【Research Center for the Legal System of Intellectual Property】

Activities

Things at Law School in America (3)

RC Kazuhiro Ando

Time flies like an arrow. It has been more than one year since my last column. During that time, I completed the LL.M. program of University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. Now I am researching on copyright law as a visiting scholar of UW School of Law. It is a quite valuable experience here in Seattle as much as my student life at Franklin Pierce in New Hampshire.

Especially, it was a quite beneficial opportunity for me to take part in the Arts Legal Clinic by Washington Lawyers for the Arts for three months as a support for attorneys. The Arts Legal Clinic is a pro bono service to provide a legal counseling every other Mondays to artists who seek legal expertise. They can ask advice for attorneys who specialize in intellectual property law. The meeting time is 30 minutes and one attorney handles five clients. So the attorneys keep working on legal counseling without rest during two and a half hours. There was a lot to learn from the attorney's technique to handle with their clients, especially, the way to explain clearly in a limited time without using difficult technical terms. Although the U.S. is said to be a lawsuit society, legal counseling by attorneys is still hard for the public to call. So the Legal Clinic seems quite beneficial because anyone can ask for attorney's advice by making a $20 donation. What surprised me was that many artists thought they needed to register their works with the Copyright Office to make their works copyrighted.

Also, it was a memorable valuable experience for me to give a lecture on copyright law as a guest lecturer at Seattle University School of Law. Having a tough time to make PPT slides awkwardly and practicing trial lessons before the class more than ten times at home were also good memories. It was only a 50-miunte short lesson, but it brought a unique experience of accomplishment more than anything to carry it through although a chain of fast questions made me cringe. Anyone who has an experience to study in the U.S. would know that American students shoot many questions at teachers. One reason would be that marks given for class participation have a large impact on their grades. Anyway, students are always making remarks during a class. This is a big difference from Japanese students who grew up in Japan which has a culture of shame. In Japan, most students neither raise questions nor make remarks during a class, but after the class, A-students of the class form a line around the teacher to ask questions individually.

When I look back now, it seems active participation in the classes at law school brought me such valuable opportunities or amazing experiences. "Life is short" as John Lennon sings so. I will treasure a new encounter and keep challenging something with the "Try Anything" spirit of Minoru Oda.