CPLER was founded in April, 2007 to nurture the brilliant legal profession and thereby to contribute the development of society based on “the rule of law”, under the support of Waseda Law School. CPLER is aimed to act as an intermediate organization between the professional legal education at school and the legal practice in the real world. It also tries to support Waseda alumni who work as lawyers.

There are three divisions; the research division, the education division and the external cooperation division. Three divisions interact with one another and engage in several academic and professional activities including the development of teaching materials, the continuing legal education (CLE), the enhancement of externship program, the legal information service.

From the past Activities

Supporting Waseda Law School, CPLER helped more than 100 Waseda Law students to take the externship program. Students went to law firms, private companies, governmental offices, non-profit organizations. The program took one to three weeks during the summer vacation.

There was one-week intensive course for judges from Shanghai, China. CPLER arranged 9 sessions about Japanese law and legal system for foreign judges. Those sessions included “Assistance Act for Crime Victims”, “the Compilation of Japanese case books”, “Japanese legal System and its challenge” and so on.

A series of lectures were presented for WLS graduates from May to September.
Distinguished attorneys, judges, law professors and others gave practical advice about their legal careers and the recent important civil and criminal cases.

Transnational Program 2007 was held from March 10 to March 15. The common theme was “Comparative International Law”. It had 9 sessions, all taught in English. Professors and students from 5 foreign schools (University of Pennsylvania, University of California - Berkeley and Duke University for the U.S., Seoul National University from Korea, National Taiwan University from R.O.C.) joined the program and studied at Waseda Law School.

Transnational Program 2008 is going to hold next March and its theme “Comparative human rights”. CPLER will announce the more details on the website in fall.