Hidemi Otani
⚒️ What do you do?
I am currently an associate lawyer at Hiroo Park Law Firm based in Tokyo.
I am also the vice chairperson at the committee for the human rights of foreigners at Tokyo Bar Association and a member of Legal Counsel Team of the Third Lawsuit for a Selective Seperate-Surname System for Married Couples.
My practice area is broad but in summary, my focus is to support foreigners and people who have foreign roots or who have connections with foreign countries. I handle divorce, child related cases, inheritance, criminal, litigation (usual civil matters), labor, immigration, setting up new businesses in Japan, commercial law etc., and I always try to bridge/fill the gap between the Japanese legal system/culture and my clients using my language skills and the experience living abroad.
What is your proudest achievement?
My proudest achievement is that I decided to pursue what I truly wanted to do in my career life and switched my career towards that (which is what I do now!) after 3 years of practice as a business lawyer.
My passion for what I practice now comes from my experience spending 1 year abroad in high school where I found it very hard for me to live as a “foreigner”.
If you had 25 hours in a day, what would you do with the extra hour?
I would write a diary to reflect the good things that happened that day, lessons learned, and set a goal for the next day.
This is what I used to do as a student and I loved this routine of mine, but never made it every day after starting my career. Sleep always came first than this important routine.
If you weren't a lawyer, what would you be?
Open my own café! Café has always been a very important and relaxing place for me. I would write a diary there, read books, or just relax.
My own law firm that I wish to open someday would definitely have a meeting room like a café, with drinks to be served. My client can choose a drink from a menu!
Your favourite food haunt is...?
Just realized that my favorite food haunts are all that I grew up with. Don’t the food you’ve always had from your childhood taste the best?
Tonkatsu Sankin at Yotsuya – “Tonkatsu” is pork-cutlet.
Owariya at Yotsuya Sanchome- They serve the best Miso based soup with thick noodle called “Kishimen”. This cuisine is originally from Nagoya Japan.
Now it’s time for sweets!
Taiyaki Wakaba from Yotsuya- “Taiyaki” is Japanese fish-shaped pancake filled with red bean paste. This Taiyaki place is one of the best 3 in Tokyo, and during the weekends, you would have to line up for 3 hours to get one.
Ichigo Mame Daifuku from Oosumi-Tamaya- Ichigo Mame Daifuku is a rice cake filled with red beans and strawberry inside. It was not usual to put strawberry inside of rice cake until this Oosumi-Tamaya first came up with this idea back in 1985.
There is a saying/proverb in Japanese “Hana yori Dango”, which literally means “Rice-dumpling over flowers”, in English it would be “Bread is better than the songs of birds”. This is why I chose my photo having a stick of rice dumpling!