2016

• Three attorneys (Mangyo Kinoshita, Eric Marcks, Takeshi Iitani) and one staff member (Masayo Kuwahara) left an international firm to establish southgate on January 1, 2016.

• We were told by the bar association that ours was the first ever joint application to form a law firm in Japan submitted by a Japanese attorney and a foreign-qualified attorney.

• Our first office, a single 39 square meter room, was in the Kudanshita district of Tokyo, across the street from the south gate entrance of a major shrine in Tokyo.

2017

• ALB featured us in its 2017 “Firms to Watch” in Asia, one of only 15 law firms to be so honored (and the first Japanese firm ever to receive this honor).

• The Legal 500 Asia Pacific guide ranked us among the top firms in the Corporate and M&A, Independent Local Firms category, a ranking we have maintained ever since.

• We moved to a slightly bigger space in our building, this one measuring about 48 square meters. But our office was still a single room with no separate conference room.

2018

• We moved our office to the Tokyo Midtown area, our current location. The space satisfied our requirements: ample bicycle parking, views of a park and trees, windows that could be opened, a conference room (and modest rent).

• We hired our first attorney since starting the firm, bringing us to four attorneys and one staff member.

• For the first time we had to decline a requested engagement due to a client conflict. Law firms seek to avoid conflicts, but we were proud that we finally had enough clients to make conflict management a newly important consideration.

• The Chambers Asia-Pacific guide ranked us among the top firms in the Corporate and M&A, Domestic category, a ranking we have maintained ever since.

2019

• We sent our first attorney to get an LL.M. degree overseas, a practice we have maintained ever since.

• The Chambers Global guide ranked us among the top firms in the Corporate and M&A, Domestic category, a ranking we have maintained ever since.

• We received the Boutique Law Firm of the Year Award at the 2019 Asian Legal Business Japan Legal Awards ceremony.

• We handled the first ever stock-for-stock deal between a Japanese buyer and an overseas target (in Chile) under the Act on Facilitating Industrial Competitiveness.

2020

• Covid-19 taught us to work remotely and brought home the risks of overreliance on cross-border work. We adapted by broadening the scope of our practice focus to include more domestic Japanese work.

• Nicolas Buffe, a French artist based in Tokyo, designed our greeting card that year. He has designed our greeting cards ever since.

2021

• We emerged from Covid-19 with a much more significant domestic transactional practice and an improved remote work infrastructure.

• Another year of exciting projects allowed us to grow slowly but steadily. We grew to nine attorneys.

2022

• The firm had grown to 11 attorneys by year’s end.

• The theme of our new year cards changed from gates to the animals of the zodiac.

2023

• Our founding partner and dear friend Mangyo Kinoshita died of cancer at the age of 46 on July 9.

• We received the first ever Rising Law Firm of the Year Award at the 2023 Asian Legal Business Japan Law Awards ceremony.

• The Legal 500 Asia Pacific guide ranked us among the top firms in the TMT, Independent Local Firms category, a ranking we have maintained ever since.