Solicitor’s Works  - Solicitors usually perform a lot of work on registration, but there are many other works that they deal with.

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1 Real Estate Registration

There are various fields of registration, but registration is largely divided into real estate registration and corporate registration.

Among the real estate registration, registration due to sales or gift of real estate, inheritance, and establishment and cancellation of right to collateral securities.

Sales, gift, and inheritance are widely known concepts, whereas establishment of right to collateral securities are performed when taking a loan from financial institutions such as banks by setting real estates such as houses as the collateral security, and cancellation of the right to collateral securities will be registered when the loan repayment is completed.

2 Corporate Registration

Corporate registration includes corporate establishment registration done when a for-profit corporation is established, registration for changes made to board members when changes are made to the board (directors, auditors), capitalization registration to increase capital, capital reduction registration to reduce capital, and dissolution and liquidation registration to liquidate the company. Of course, there are also registrations done on establishment and changes to non-profit corporations.

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3 Public Deposit

Apart from registration, solicitor receive deposits. There are various deposits available, deposit for reimbursement made when creditor refuses to receive reimbursement from debtor even when the debtor is willing to reimburse, or when the debtor does not know the address of the counterparty is most frequently delegated.

When a deposit is made, the creditor is deemed to have made reimbursement even if the counterparty does not pick up the deposit from the depository, therefore the creditor will be free from liabilities and interest will no longer be accrued.

 

4 Personal rehabilitation, bankruptcy, immunity

One of the important works that solicitor attend to is application for personal rehabilitation, bankruptcy, and immunity. Rehabilitation refers to a system where a debtor with heavy debt can clear his/her liabilities if he/she repays about 30%-50% of the debt over a number of times, while bankruptcy and immunity application refers to systems where a person who is incapable of paying even a part of the debt over a number of times repays the liability with his/her current properties (there are cases where he/she has very little properties or even has only debts) and writes off the remaining debt.

 

4. Proxy for real estate biddings (purchases)

In addition, when a real estate owned by a debtor who fails to repay the debts falls into a court auction procedure, solicitor acts as a proxy for the person who wishes to acquire such real estate through court auction to make acquisition application (purchase application). This is called ‘proxy for real estate biddings (purchases)’.

The registration, deposit, rehabilitation, bankruptcy, immunity application, and proxy for real estate are the works that can be done by solicitor as a proxy for clients.

Acting as a proxy refers to the role that a solicitor plays as a proxy of application for the person, just as an attorney-at-law (or a barrister) plays the role of an attorney; a solicitor will express the will on behalf of the person under the name of the proxy, and not the name of the person, on the document within the scope delegated by the person. (The will can only be manifested under the name of the person on documents if a proxy is not hired)

 

5. Matters related to lawsuits

Other than the registration works above, solicitor deal a numerous number of matters related to lawsuits in daily lives.

Most of the matters are related to civil suits. Solicitors prepare petitions to file suits, replies to petitions that are prepared by the other party, and the preparatory documents for pleadings.

Of course, solicitors not only prepare documents, but also submit them to courts or receive documents that the other party had submitted, and basically provide consultations related to legal disputes, including lawsuits.

Solicitor processes complaints related to criminal cases and other various affairs, but the scope of works performed are relatively less compared to civil suits.

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6. Compulsory executions, including auctions

One of the main tasks dealt by solicitors is compulsory execution on the properties of the other party (auction of real estates, seizure of bonds, auction of tangible estates, enforcement of vacation and transfer of real estates) which is executed when the other party fails to fulfill their liabilities even after the closure of civil suits. Applications for provisional attachment and injunction to prevent debtors from disposing their properties before the lawsuit are also frequently rendered by solicitors.

 

7. Affairs related to family relations register

Various applications for changes to family relations register (previously known as ‘family register’), including application for approval of renaming and change of date of birth, are also major tasks performed by solicitor.

 

8. Affairs related to adult guardianship

Application for the appointment of adult guardians, which has been mentioned frequently in the media recently, is one of the tasks performed by the solicitors.

Application for the appointment of adult guardians refers to the application filed to court for appointment of a person (guardian) who can assist and supplement those lacking in mental capacity and facing difficulties in making legal decisions alone (usually applications are made to appoint family members as guardians). solicitor file application for the appointment of guardians, but sometimes they are appointed as adult guardians by the court and act as guardians.

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Differences Between Solicitor and Lawyers (or Barristers)
Many people are curious what the differences in works done by attorneys-at-law (or barristers) and solicitors are.

Formally, the tasks which solicitors can handle is limited to tasks defined in the solicitors  Act (registration, deposit, proxy of auction bidding, proxy of application for rehabilitation and bankruptcy, preparation and proxy of submission of documents submitted to courts and public prosecutor’s office). On the other hand, attorneys-at-law may perform all tasks related to legal affairs.

However, in practice, it is not exaggerating to say that attorneys-at-law specializes in affairs related to attorney, and a host of legal affairs that people come across in daily lives are practically done by solicitors.

In other words, apart from the cases where the person cannot appear in court and require attorney-at-law to appear and defend on his or her behalf (when the person has no time to appear in court or cannot defend himself/herself due to lack of legal knowledge on the case), solicitors prepare and submit lawsuit documents, including petitions, replies, and preparatory documents, in many lawsuit cases and the person appears in court on date for pleading.

This is because solicitors do not have authority of legal representation and only have rights for proxy of preparation and submission of lawsuit documents (solicitors may not appear in courts as attorneys).

In reality, in many lawsuit cases, persons proceed with lawsuits, assisted by solicitors and without appointing attorneys-at-law, if the persons are equipped with sufficient knowledge that enables them to appear in courts and plead, unless the cases are complex and difficult to understand.

In addition, most of attorney-at-law offices are located within the downtown area, but solicitor offices are located evenly across the country, enabling the people to conveniently receive legal help.

There are many ‘pro se litigants’ frequently mentioned in the media who proceed with lawsuits with assistance from solicitors.

There are not many ‘pro se litigants’ who proceed with lawsuit without assistance from attorneys-at-law or solicitors.

 

Activities of Solicitors
Solicitors participate in various pro bono activities in places nearest to the people all around the country.

Solicitors participates in various political, social and economic activities, including free legal counseling, civic group activities, mediation, and crime prvention activities.