TOKYO – A Japanese attorney may face disciplinary action after representing a production studio in a lawsuit against a woman who refused to perform in porn.
According to documents filed in the subject lawsuit, the production company sought 24.6 million yen (about U.S. $218,000) from a female performer who the studio claimed breached her contract by refusing to perform in a sexually explicit video. The court dismissed the suit in September 2015, saying no one may be forced to perform in porn against their will, especially under threat of financial penalty.
In October 2015, an unidentified individual asked the Daini Tokyo Bar Association to sanction the attorney for, in the complainer’s view, helping the studio practice extortion.
The DTBA reviewed the case and determined the lawyer was pursuing his client’s financial interest and therefor violated no bar association rules.
Unsatisfied, the complainer took the case to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which in late December bounced the case back to the DTBA with instructions to reconsider the matter.
“A lawsuit demanding a large sum of money has an intimidating effect to coerce a porn video appearance,” the federation noted in a statement. “We cannot say there were no issues [with the lawsuit], taking into account the degree of impact the woman might have been subjected to as well as the details of what was demanded.”
The unnamed attorney, in his 60s, said he behaved in accordance with applicable law and the bar’s code of professional conduct.
“A lawyer’s job is to act for clients who have the ‘right to justice’ as a Japanese citizen and to ask a court to make judgment,” he told The Asahi Shimbun. “The JFBA’s decision to make a lawsuit filing as a subject of disciplinary action review is unjust, and I will argue for the legitimacy [of my actions] at a review committee meeting.”
Yasutomo Morigiwa, a professor of jurisprudence at Meiji University and an expert in legal ethics, told Shimbun the case may require the bar association to refine its definition of “just cause.”
Although a lawyer must represent clients’ business interests, “certain restrictions on their conduct have been set,” he said. “[The JFBA’s] Basic Rules on the Duties of Practicing Attorneys, for example, prohibit lawyers from undertaking cases with unjust objectives. Filing such a lawsuit can be a subject of disciplinary action.”
As yet, the Daini Tokyo Bar Association has set no date for a hearing.
