Some eight months after new regulations were introduced permitting enhanced cooperation between western and Japanese qualified lawyers, and the Japanese legal market is looking more fluid than ever.

While many of the international firms, as expected, have considerably boosted their bengoshi headcount since 1 April, domestic firms are now starting to get in on the act.

In the last few weeks alone, each of Japan's Big Four domestic law firm heavyweights has considerably boosted its respective ranks - landing the best and the brightest young attorneys who completed their judicial research and training in October.

Graduate recruitment this year is the very last under the old system, where all legal professionals graduate from a single law school - the Legal Training and Research Institute, or Shihou Kenshuusho. As of April next year, students at any one of the country's 66 new law schools around the country - both public and private - will sit a bar exam that will text a broader range of skills.

Hiring the most junior legal eagles was Nishimura & Partners, which welcomed 27 new lawyers to the firm on 11 October - boosting its headcount to 212 Japanese attorneys and five non-Japanese attorneys.

Managing partner Akira Kosugi said his firm did not set out intentionally to hire more recruits than its competitors. "We're always looking to recruit the highest quality of graduates, and this year our recruiting process was extremely successful."

The next most active recruiters were Anderson Mori & Tomotsune and Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu. Both took on 22 new first year Japanese associates, which boosted the former's Japanese attorney headcount to over 190.

Anderson Mori partner Kenichi Nakano said: "Since our merger [between Anderson Mori and Tomotsune & Kimura] in January this year, our workload has increased, so we think the additional 22 associate attorneys increase our capacity to handle large and complex legal projects while maintaining the highest standards of quality."

Nagashima Ohno's additional personnel took its total lawyer headcount to 217 attorneys, as of 1 November, which includes 11 foreign attorneys not licensed under Japanese law. The final member of the Big Four, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, added a relatively modest 17 lawyers to its critical mass.

But perhaps the most significant move of any domestic firm in Japan has been the one made by Atsumi & Partners. In addition to welcoming four new Japanese attorneys in October, the firm is also hiring in-house finance lawyer Nicola Lawson from Mitsubishi Securities in London.

Specialising in the area of swaps and derivatives, Lawson will start at Atsumi on 10 January - subject to securing the necessary visa documents. In doing so, she becomes the first foreign associate to be put on partner track at a Japanese firm, which was one of the main reasons why the firm hired Bonnie Dixon (Lawson's boss) as the first non-Japanese partner of a Japanese law firm at the beginning of April.

One in-house lawyer in Japan that ALB spoke with recently was full of praise for the bold move shown by the firm. "It's a smart move," said the lawyer. "If Japanese firms can get that expertise and perspective, it could make them compete on a level playing field."

The Japanese Diet passed the new regulations lifting restrictions on foreign lawyers forging local partnerships with bengoshi in July 2003.