Grantee: LEDGE (2025)
Project: Cross-Border Legal Empowerment Project
The Candidacy Age Case – Aspiration Meets Legal Roadblocks
Imagine turning 18 in Japan today. You can vote. You can sign contracts. You’re legally an adult. But if you want to run for local office—to represent your peers or your community—you’ll have to wait nearly another decade. decades. Despite lowering the voting age and age of majority to 18, Japan still requires candidates for national office to be at least 25 or 30. For young people eager to shape the future, the law sends a clear message: not yet.
Cases like this are called public litigation and often address the mismatch between law and society. They are vital to the full functioning of the legal system and the way the law functions in society, but they rarely get challenged in court—because few have the resources, time, or legal support to try them.
In Japan, public interest litigation remains a rarity. Only a handful of laws have ever been struck down as unconstitutional, and legal challenges aimed at advancing social justice are often pursued by a small, under-resourced group of committed lawyers—many of whom juggle this work alongside private practice. The reason isn’t a lack of legal talent or civic commitment. What’s missing is infrastructure: the systems, partnerships, and support that allow lawyers to take on complex, time-intensive public interest cases.
That’s where LEDGE comes in.
Founded in 2023, LEDGE is Japan’s first full-time public interest litigation organization. With support from the United States-Japan Foundation (USJF), LEDGE is launching a project designed not just to win cases—but to build the legal ecosystem necessary for more lawyers, more firms, and more clients to pursue justice through the courts.
And they’re working to do it through international collaboration between US law firms and Japanese public interest lawyers.
Building a System, Not Just a Case
The initiative, titled the Cross-Border Legal Empowerment Project, focuses on creating structured, mutually beneficial partnerships between U.S. law firms operating in Japan and Japanese public interest lawyers. LEDGE’s team—composed of attorneys admitted in both Japan and the U.S.—understands the strengths of each legal system and sees untapped potential in bridging them.
“In Japan, public interest litigation has long relied on a small number of litigators working pro bono,” explains LEDGE Director Motoki Taniguchi. “With LEDGE, we’ve taken a step forward to change that landscape by creating Japan’s first organization dedicated to public interest litigation. If we can also build a robust pro bono network, we could go even further."
The project unfolds in two phases. First, LEDGE is assessing the pro bono capacity and interest of U.S. firms based in Japan—many of which have internal mandates or aspirations to contribute to social good, but no clear pathways to do so locally. In the second phase, LEDGE will match a partner firm with an ongoing case, launch a collaborative pilot project, and document the process in a final action-oriented report designed to serve as a model for future partnerships.
A Shared Opportunity
The benefits of this approach are mutual. For Japanese legal professionals, the project offers access to foreign precedent, strategic legal tools, and specialized research capacity. For U.S. law firms, it provides a meaningful way to engage with public interest work in Japan—something that has historically been difficult to do.
The project is also unique in its emphasis on bidirectional learning. U.S. lawyers are not just offering expertise; they are also gaining insight into Japan’s legal and cultural landscape and contributing to a broader international conversation about legal access, fairness, and reform. Even in these times of geopolitical conflict and isolationist rhetoric, “human rights challenges around the world are often deeply connected. When a breakthrough on a human rights case happens in one jurisdiction, it can inspire and inform change elsewhere in similar types of cases,” explains Taniguchi.
The project's collaboration addresses exactly this interconnectedness by pooling the talents and resources from both countries to engage in a vital task that goes beyond either country. Clarisse Ikeda, an attorney admitted in New York and Legal Associate at LEDGE, emphasizes the global stakes: “In a time when human rights are under attack around the world, this project is more essential than ever. Cross-border collaboration and solidarity have never been more critical.”
Why This Matters Now
LEDGE is already handling several cases that exemplify the power of public interest law in Japan today. Among them:
A challenge to Japan’s age of candidacy law, which remains unchanged even after the voting age and age of majority were lowered to 18.- A lawsuit addressing racial profiling in police practices, calling for an end to discriminatory questioning based on race or ethnicity.
- A reproductive rights case challenging restrictions on access to sterilization under the Maternal Health Act.
- A suit advocating for the right of married couples to keep separate surnames—an issue that affects everything from identity to career.
These are not just symbolic cases. They are legal challenges with the potential to shape precedent, improve policy, and protect rights. But they require time, expertise, and support to succeed—especially when plaintiffs face significant institutional resistance.
That’s why pro bono collaboration isn’t just helpful. It’s foundational.
A USJF Perspective: Mutual Benefit Through Legal Collaboration
For the United States-Japan Foundation, this project represents the kind of carefully targeted cross-national collaboration to address shared pressing social needs that we are proud to support. It exemplifies our belief that partnerships between Japan and the U.S. are most meaningful when both sides bring something to the table—and both come away changed.
By connecting U.S. law firms with Japanese public interest lawyers, LEDGE is not just supporting individual cases. It’s helping build a long-term foundation for shared legal capacity, increased pro bono engagement, and more just outcomes across both societies.
USJF is proud to support a project that doesn't just serve one cause, but helps build a lasting bridge between legal communities. The ripple effects—across institutions, cases, and individual lives—are just the sort of outcomes we seek out at USJF.
Quiet Work, Lasting Foundations
What LEDGE is building isn’t flashy. It doesn’t always come with headlines or hashtags. But it could quietly reshape the conditions under which justice is pursued in Japan—and offer a new role for U.S. legal professionals seeking to make a global contribution.
With a small team, a focused strategy, and the support of the U.S.-Japan Foundation, LEDGE is demonstrating what’s possible when infrastructure meets vision, and when international partnerships are built not just on goodwill, but on shared tools, shared goals, and shared effort. Taniguchi notes, “The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Many legal professionals in both countries are genuinely interested in the potential for pro bono work with LEDGE, and we’re seeing real, concrete progress. It feels like momentum is building.”
