Before becoming a gaiben, a lawyer must: A 13-member screening committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations reviews each application, a process which usually takes several months.
Upon approval, the lawyer's official title becomes "Attorney at Foreign Law for [state]," with their home jurisdiction filled in.
Several thousand foreign-qualified lawyers, many of them Japanese nationals, work in Japan as employees of law firms or corporate legal departments without being admitted as gaiben.
[11] The United States government began to view the restrictions on foreign lawyers as a trade barrier during the early 1980s, and in 1984, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations exchanged proposals with the American Bar Association regarding a new foreign lawyer registration system.
A revised law enacted in 1994 made it possible to establish fee-sharing (but not profit-sharing) "joint enterprises" between gaiben and local lawyers.