Like many things Japanese, the Japanese legal system has its peculiarities... and Professor Jones applies his decades of legal and teaching experience to shed light on its mysteries. As with most legal systems there is method to its madness, and while the reasoning behind it all is a bit different from the approaches of Western nations, it works. Usually. Based on the author's long-running feature in The Japan Times, the book offers a selection of his most important columns, plus other articles drawn from numerous sources, and including a number of never-before published pieces. Older articles have been updated to reflect more recent developments, but remain vitally important to understanding how things work in Japan. And in spite of being written by an attorney, the book is in everyday English, peppered with entertaining and sometimes stinging asides. Here, at last, is a glimpse into the Japanese legal system, ideal for foreign residents of Japan as well as legal researchers and practitioners.