Hideo Kashimoto – Managing Partner
Message
If you are reading this page, you may well be facing one of the hardest moments of your life – perhaps in a country whose legal system you do not know, with no clear idea of what will happen next. Let me first help you take away that uncertainty.
I often think that lawyers are like doctors. I can easily imagine how frightening it is not to know what is going to happen to you. So I make it a rule to answer every question honestly, to explain clearly, and only then to build the best possible defense. Please talk to us first. A defense lawyer is your absolute ally – without reservation and without judgment.
Philosophy
My policy is to help my clients in every way I can. Pure defense work – examining the evidence, preparing for trial, negotiating a settlement with the victim – is only the starting point. Ten clients have ten different hopes: some want the best possible outcome; others want to know what will happen next, or want someone to hear what their family member is really thinking, or need help planning their family’s future. I take each of those wishes seriously. Time and again I have seen that supporting a client in every dimension of their case is also what leads, in the end, to the best legal result.
Selected Results
- Cases involving foreign nationals, including cocaine possession, stimulant smuggling, assault, and theft – handled together with the related immigration proceedings, including deportation cases before the Immigration Services Agency
- Non-prosecution obtained through settlement in numerous cases, including molestation, indecent assault, voyeurism, theft, assault, and negligent driving causing injury
- Non-prosecution for insufficient evidence obtained for clients who denied the allegations, in cases including stimulant use and smuggling, cannabis possession, child pornography, molestation, and drunk driving
- Suspended sentences obtained in fraud, indecent assault, and fatal hit-and-run cases
- A partially suspended sentence obtained in a stimulant use case for a client with nine prior convictions of the same kind
- Avoidance of compulsory hospitalization in proceedings under the Medical Treatment and Supervision Act following a homicide case in which diminished capacity was found and a suspended sentence obtained
- Defense counsel in lay judge (saiban-in) trials involving homicide, robbery causing injury, and stimulant smuggling
- Juvenile cases in which detention in a juvenile training school was avoided against the recommendation of the family court probation officer
Background
I was born in Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and read law at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. I qualified for the bar examination through the national preliminary examination while at Hitotsubashi’s law school, passed the bar examination, and was admitted to practice (Tokyo Bar Association).
I am a member of the Criminal Defense Committee of the Tokyo Bar Association, co-authored a practitioners’ handbook on criminal defense, 21 Methods in Criminal Cases (in Japanese), and have appeared as a commentator on criminal cases on national television programs of TV Asahi, Nippon TV, and Yomiuri TV, as well as in the press.
Beyond the Office
A dedicated runner, I have twice completed the Tokyo Marathon in under four hours. I am also fond of rail travel and have ridden every JR line in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions.
Office
Tokyo Office
Languages
Japanese, English
