 I am the host of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. Today we're going across the sea to meet with Gerald Thomas in Kobe, Japan. Gerald Thomas, or he lets me call him Jerry is a Canadian barrister and solicitor. But he's lived and worked in Japan for over 25 years. He is the founder and president of Thomas consultants international. Which provides services to international businesses. And the community that comes to Japan. And Japanese lawyers. I've asked Jerry to tell us what he has learned about life and law. How he got to Japan. And what's it like to be a Canadian barrister and solicitor. Working. And living. In Japan. So welcome, Jerry. How are you? Good to very much Mark. Very nice to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. Oh, I find your story. I could call it that very interesting and I want to first point out, you're in Kobe. Japan and Kobe, if we could put up a map is on the southern part of Japan. In Honshu. And you, that's where you live. And that's where you are now and I want to, I want to ask you want to go in a little bit more. And let's talk about how did you get to Japan? I mean, you're a Canadian. Here you are Canadian barrister and solicitor. And but you're, you know, you spent substantial amount of time in Kobe, Japan. Well, how did that come about? Give us a background. Mark, it's a simple love story. If I have to put it that way, because I met my wife who is from Kobe during my law school years or actually right before I went to law school and she was studying in Canada. And prior to that, I had no relationship with Japan at all. I mean, I did martial arts. I did karate, but I had never been to Japan. But I met my wife in the summer of in the summer of 88. And that was it. And so as I went to law school, I thought that the role or the life of an international lawyer would be very interesting. So I focused my studies on international law specifically looking at Japan as a market. And it all evolved through that. And so I was lucky I had an end in the sense of my wife being from Kobe. And then my practice kind of evolved as after I finished law school, I was going every summer back to Japan. I married my wife in 88 or 89 actually, sorry. And so during my law school years, we would go back into summertime. And then after I finished law school, I went to Japan for a year to study Japanese and work. And then I got called to the bar in 1991 or in 1993, sorry, at the end of law school after my one year in Japan. And I went to Japan again for another year. I thought a year or two to again focus on the law and working with Japanese lawyers. And I enjoyed it so much I just never went back and opened up my own consulting firm and it all started from there. Okay, so it's all about love. That's what I hear in America. That's right. That's the base. Love is the base. That's a good story. I like that. And you love Japan. You love Kobe also, I guess. Is that right? Now, Japan is a beautiful place to live and to work. I mean, it has its challenges without a doubt, especially the language. But there is support. And I always had, in a sense, family in Japan, my wife and her family, because they're from Kobe. And so it was something where my time in Kobe, especially initially, was always with support. So I'm very grateful for that. And in the international legal community, I had some key supporters which really were wonderful. And that's the way Japan works. So what did you do? I mean, when you got to Japan, were you able to work? I suspect that you weren't able to be a barrister. That's a good point. What did you do? Well, most non-Japanese that come here, if you're a native English speaker, you teach English. And that's what I did before I got called to the bar. I taught English as a second language. I taught that with a language school. And through that teaching, because my focus was business, I met many international or many business people, Japanese business people that wanted to practice or work abroad. And so I came into contact with that market. Once I got called to the bar, I did a one year working with the Japanese law office in Osaka, which is 25 minutes away from Kobe. And so I had one year of actual working in a Japanese law office. After that, I saw the opportunity to work with many law offices. And that's why I started my own consulting firm, so that I could provide my services to a number of Japanese law offices working on international projects on a per project basis. And that's how things kind of evolve that way. I am not licensed to practice law in Japan. And so to get around that and to follow the law, of course, because it's very important to follow Japanese laws. I made the Japanese lawyers themselves, my clients. And so the worry is, you know, among non people that are practicing without proper licenses is that you're going to damage the public or that you're somehow going to mislead the public. But if my clients are the lawyers themselves, nobody was misled. And I was able to support the lawyers as a, I say a silent partner in the background, helping them with their international negotiations, helping them with their documents, proofreading, translating. And that's how my business evolved. Okay, and I do want to ask a little bit about that, but first I want to ask you, you know, you were a foreigner. I mean, you spent a lot of time in Japan before you started working, you got married to a Japanese lady in Kobe. And you work, you lived there and you had family there. What are the pluses and minuses about being a foreigner? I mean, was it hard just to be a foreigner that lived there and tried to work? Or how did that come about for you? Well, as a foreigner, you know, I always compare it to a dancing bear in a circus. If you look at a dancing bear in the circus, everybody claps and says, oh, that's such an interesting dancing bear. But you don't want to take them home with you, right? And so it's something where there are pluses and minuses to being a minority in Japan and a visible minority at that. And Kobe at the time didn't have a lot of foreigners where I lived. You know, there was a foreign community, an expat community in Kobe, but I didn't live there. I lived actually very close to my wife's family just on the outskirts of the city. So it's something where I was really where I was. I was the only foreigner in the community. And that has a plus and a minus. I mean, the plus side is everybody knows them clearly not from there. And Japanese people were generally very supportive and very helpful. On the other hand, you had to get used to being stared at. You had to get used to the kids smiling and laughing and pointing. And like I said, you take the minuses with the pluses. The pluses outweigh the minuses by a lot. And you've obviously like it and love it as we've learned and enjoyed your life there. And now tell us about your business. What is your consulting business? Thomas Consultants International. What do you do? What's that about? Well, my clients are all Japanese lawyers primarily that, you know, I do work with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies because I do corporate training as well. So actually I taught presentation skills 25 years ago before the pandemic and zoom and everything made, you know, video conferencing a normal part of working life. But it's something where back then lawyers really didn't have resources to help them get training, you know, on how to speak or how to proofread their documents or translation. And so I provided that kind of support service so I would meet the lawyers. They would have projects that they'd be working on and I would help them perform their work in the background. You know, and because I'm not licensed in Japan, I could never take clients on my own for legal work. But I was very happy to work with the Japanese lawyers and they took the credit for the work. And at the same time, though, lawyers understand and they're appreciative. And, you know, I got the respect of they knew that I was helping them do their work. And so that's how my business evolved. It's really one of the first and the only company I know that's actually doing this in Japan. And 30 years ago, it was very controversial because some people were concerned whether I was practicing illegal or not. And so I actually had a meeting with the largest organization of lawyers in Japan, the Japan Federation of Arts Association. They brought me in front of their committee to see if I was practicing illegally and I showed them I wasn't. And so I was able to continue my business. So that's interesting. And then you, I know that you also do some mediation and arbitration. But so you serve as a bridge and a support for Japanese lawyers. And what's the mediation and arbitration about? Thank you, Mark. Yeah, I am allowed to practice as a foreign arbitrate. That is allowed even though I'm not licensed in Japan as a lawyer, I'm allowed to practice as an arbitrator under the rules. A mediator now that is something that I am also allowed to do provided it's in an international context. So if one of the parties is non Japanese, I am allowed to serve as a mediator. So for example, international marriages, you know, when they're talking about custody of the kids, things like that, or partner disputes, a certain commercial disputes between a foreign company and a Japanese company, I can serve as a mediator. And that's where I primarily do my work, not on the arbitration side, but on the mediation side. My own philosophy of working is much more to support the parties to reach their own conclusion rather than being a judge that says you win, you lose, and that's it, it's over. And so my background really is cross cultural negotiation before I became went to law school. I was a psych major for behavioral and educational psychology. And I found that that applied very well dealing with parties under stress, helping them find a solution to their problems. And that's where, you know, I enjoy my work the most as the media. You know, it's very, very interesting. All of your background leads you to where you are all the things that came into your life. From your, you know, before you became a lawyer, before law school and now meeting your, your wife in Canada and then becoming a lawyer and then it's, it's leads you it seems to me all of these little factors. Where do they come from and then, and then you're there. I said it best, right? He said no experience is wasted. And I really believe that. Yeah, well, one thing you mentioned, you talked about working on divorce cases. And I have handled some cases involving children and who gets custody. How do you deal with that in Japan because children I know in Japan are, that's a treasure. How, how do you deal with that with the cultural custody issues? Yeah, well, I mean, there's the head convention, which really rules in terms of where the child should be in custody, but in Japan, between two Japanese people that are getting a divorce. The children usually go to the mother. And that's a cultural thing. It's, it's practical on one side, but the courts are supposed to find the best environment for the children and there is a general tendency that those children are best with the mother. When we take that into an international context, it makes it very difficult because even if the father was the primary caregiver, the mother was a professional woman, for example, a flight attendant or, or a doctor. The case is being made that was the children are still better with the mother. They get to use if the father is the non Japanese and the mother is Japanese while the children get to develop their Japanese skills better in the mother's home. And seeing that that that makes things very complicated. And a lot of times I have to explain to the father that this is not a prejudice in terms of you as a foreigner, but in Japan between two Japanese people, the children often go to the mother too. And that's very difficult. And so these these child custody cases are very, very emotional. And my heart bleeds for them, both sides and the children, especially. Japan does not have joint custody. That's a very big difference between, you know, the US and Canada, where we can say, well, you can share the custody of the children, as long as you guys can do it, responsibly as adults. Japan doesn't have that. It's one or the other 100% and the other person gets visitation. If they're lucky, a couple of hours a month. That's it under the court. So it's a very different system. And you as a mediator, I guess, because your knowledge of culture in Japan, you try to express that to the parties so that the result is peaceful. Yeah, well, that's right. And what I say to the parties is that it's much better for you guys to forge a solution together than to have some judge come out as a third party and say, you get this, you get this, it's over. And if you can do it together, that's better for, it makes you want to hold to the rules that you've agreed to. If you agree to the rules, you tend to follow them better than when somebody imposes them on you. And so, a mediated solution, I believe, is by far the best than one that's given by a third party judge. Right, right. I agree with that. Now, I want to talk a little bit about Kobe because Kobe has had some experiences very similar to Maui. But first, let's just put up a photo of Kobe and tell me what Kobe is like, what the city is like. Yeah. Kobe is a beautiful city. I mean, it's about one and a half million people. And it's very similar to Seattle or to Vancouver in Canada because it's on a port. It's a port city and you've got all that international transportation trade. And actually, Kobe was the first city open to foreigners, you know, in 1867, basically. And for that reason, there was a foreign settlement and Kobe very early on. Now, that has changed over the years. But Kobe is a beautiful city. It's a half hour from Osaka, which is, you know, eight million people. It's a little bit further from Kyoto, which is considered, you know, the seed of Japanese culture. And so, it's a beautiful location with the mountains and the water and, you know, the port. It's a really nice place to live. Okay. Now, I want to, I want to now focus a little bit on kind of the experience we've had in Hawaii quite recently and ask about your experience in January 1995. Kobe was hit by a massive earthquake, the Great Hunshin earthquake. What can you tell us about that? Where were you? What happened? Yeah, well, I was living in Kobe with my family. I had two children at the time and my wife was pregnant for a third. And we live in a place called Arima, which is part of Kobe, but it is a hot spring town similar to Banff, Alberta, Canada. It has a hot spring and that is, it's 90% of tourism is what keeps that city going. And I was there with my family, my wife's hometown. And at 8 or at 546 in the morning, suddenly the ground left me. I was in air because the first shock of that earthquake was what was vertical drop and then things started shaking and everything came off the walls. It was just, I'd never been in a major earthquake before. Japan always has smaller earthquakes, but this was a massive earthquake. We had cracks in the walls. We had everything come down. It was shocking. Fortunately, the roof was fine and the walls could be repaired, but it was just shocking. And I remember saying to myself, I mean, this is an earthquake. And I remember that during, for example, the Great Tokyo earthquake, the Kanto earthquake in 1923, most people died from fire. So I immediately went outside and I shut off all the gas in the houses on my row. And that was just thinking like a machine. It just, you know, self-preservation. People started coming out of the buildings and it was just shock. Where we were, we were not in the epicenter. We were about five kilometers away. So we were actually one tenth of what had happened. What had happened downtown was 10 times on the scale, one level on the scale higher than what we had experienced. But what we experienced still caused massive damage. The final count was 6,400 dead. And now you've got to understand, Kobe was a very confident city. We had not had a major earthquake like that for hundreds of years. So Kobe, despite other places in Japan having sizable earthquakes on a regular schedule almost every 70 years, every 50 years, Kobe was really spared all of that. And so we didn't have earthquake experience like that. And then this massive quake was just beyond anything. And very similar to Maui in a way. I mean, Maui was not an earthquake, but the result was the same. We hadn't experienced that exactly, but there was a lot of death involved. And how did Kobe handle it? How has it handled it? What did it do? And what has been the result of the people in Kobe having to deal with that disaster? Yeah, well, it's very interesting because actually that earthquake was considered a turning point for volunteerism in Japan. It was very interesting because we had massive influx of volunteers supporting the people in Kobe. And the national government of Japan actually made January 17th National Volunteer Day. And it's become one of those turning points where volunteerism just expanded exponentially from that time due to what happened in Kobe. And so many laws were changed regarding support to the local population in the event of a disaster. And the volunteer communities will rush to the scene of an earthquake or natural disaster in Japan based on the experience that was found in Kobe. And it was very newsworthy. A lot of people reported this. And what was very interesting, even the local Yakuza organization. Kobe actually has one particular Yakuza organization, which is one of the biggest in Japan. And the organized crime organ actually was one of the first people to set up support networks to get resources and supplies to the people whose houses had fallen down. 400,000 buildings became uninhabitable at that time. And everybody chipped in. And I think that everybody chipping in in the local community and the extended community was really something noteworthy about this earthquake. Well, we're seeing a lot of help come from all around the world and within Hawaii also from various people. We're still at the beginning stages here of trying to get back to where we should be. But it sounds like what happened, some good came out of this. I mean, some good people coming together and a positive thing came out of this. Now I want to ask you, were lawyers involved? Were the Bengoshi, the Japanese lawyers, involved in how were they? And there's been some criticism of lawyers being involved in these type of things. But just what happened in Kobe and what happened with Japanese lawyers? It's surprising because when we think of lawyers, we don't usually think of them as an essential service like doctors and firefighters. But the reality is that there are a lot of legal issues that happen as a result of these disasters. For example, many of these buildings became uninhabitable and the landlord said, I'm sorry, but you have to leave. And these people said, well, what do we do? We pay you to rent. We want our money back or we want our deposit back. And there are a lot of legal issues about that. Of course, a lot of legal issues about insurance. But these people needed a way to be able to express their need. And the lawyers often would help them fill out the forms, would help them fill out the insurance documents so that they could make a claim so that they could get compensation. These things where the lawyers are so important, because many of the people are elderly or have no legal experience, that the role of lawyers is essential. And especially also the role of the law societies to support this and make sure that the legal support that's being given is being properly given. And so that nobody's taking advantage. You know, when I think of Maui and I think of the situation there, I say all this property is suddenly going to be available. And you have to make sure that you don't get, you know, the foreign interest coming in or people taking advantage of people in a weak position. And lawyers can help with that. You know, and especially like I said, the bar associations can really support the Japanese population or the Hawaiian population or in a disaster in Japan, the Japanese population, get access to the compensation they need. So you've seen the positive aspect of lawyers helping after the Kobe earthquake. And we're seeing it too in our bar association is stepping up and so are lawyers. There is some, you know, sarcasm and negative comments. How should lawyers deal with that type of thing when somebody, I mean, there says things about, well, you're just doing this for the money. Yeah, well, I mean, there is a significant social, social activism that lawyers participate in. And people sometimes forget that, that we're in this, of course, where it's our career. But on the other hand, there's so much pro bono work being done. There's so much work above and beyond because lawyers truly want to contribute to their societies. They truly want to contribute to their communities. And those that are the most sarcastic often don't really know what the lawyers are doing or what they're trying to do. And once again, the bar associations can help coordinate that and make sure it's done in a proper way because lawyers only exist because they're able to help society. Otherwise, there'd be no role for them. And it's something where in a disaster like this, the lawyers should be stepping up and helping and they can help so much on the document side, helping people get access to information. And there's always going to be naysayers. There's always going to be those types of people. And the lawyers have always functioned with that. And we will continue to function that way to ignore those people. And so some of the important things that lawyers and bar associations have to do is educate people also, just send out the word and tell them what we're doing and how it's beneficial. So there is that. Now, you've, you know, your story began with love. You walked through a disaster in Kobe. Also, and you've been working hard with different aspects of the legal community and the international community in Kobe. I want to ask you just some general questions. What have you learned about life and people from your time in Japan, especially with respect to the disaster of the Kobe earthquake? You know, it's interesting because I think the thing that I learned the most is that as human beings, we go through the same emotions and the same points of our life, birth, marriage, death. All of these things, even though we may be from completely different cultures, we feel the same way. And we go through the same range of emotions. A disaster in Hawaii or a disaster in Japan. People cry the same. So you deal with it, you know. You're saying we're all connected. We're all. We are very much connected. We're not different races. We are the human race is what I hear you say. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, those same feelings on life and death, they cross cultures. And that's where we can really connect with each other is and that's where I think the volunteerism and support from country to country. When we have a disaster in one place that other countries contribute, they send their teams and things like that. It's so valuable because we share a common humanity. Is there anything in Japanese culture or Canadian culture that has helped you? I think that, you know, Canadian culture is very, very international in the sense that, you know, we have a lot of immigration. In Japan, they don't. And it's something where Japan has issues regarding population decline. And simply, they have to open up more. And I think that as they open up more, they're going to see the benefits of that. And it's going to be something that is going to help them reach a better, better economy and a better appreciation for the different races and different cultures. So between Canada and Japan, they're very different, but there are some common themes that I know they share. And living in Japan has been really wonderful to be able to see those from both sides. So the background you bring from Canada can contribute and help in Japan also. I think so. We have just a few seconds left, Jerry. And I just, you have a couple words that you could tell people on how to deal with disasters, including the, you went through a disaster. Yeah, it's the worst year of my life without a doubt that year. But what words of wisdom or advice would you give to people to deal with disaster? You know, you never forget those moments, but you can move on and change. And things do get better, you know, and that's the thing that it's going to take years to recover, but piece by piece, you will. And Kobe now is a beautiful, vibrant city again, different than it was before the earthquake. There's a beautiful picture of it. And we still, you know, every January 17th at 546 in the morning, there is a group getting together with a candlelight vigil every year. So we never forget, but we can come back from that. And Kobe has come back with it and I'm sure Hawaii will too. I'm sure that Maui will come back. And yeah, and that's what you have to remember even in the worst times. Things will get better. Well, Gerald Thomas, thank you very much for being my guest today and providing words of hope and inspiration. And your own experience has been very helpful. And it was good to hear your story. So thank you very much. Aloha. Thank you, Mark.