Shigeto Tanaka / Yomiuri Shimbun staff writer
KESENNUMA, Miyagi--A young lawyer who relocated from Osaka to Kesennuma has pledged to devote his career to restoring the city devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The disaster damaged the home and office of Tadahiro Higashi, 33, but he was able to open a makeshift office Monday in a clothing store storage room.
Higashi moved from Osaka to Kesennuma a few years ago in the hope of helping residents in the city, which had only a few lawyers. In April 2007, he opened his practice, called the Kesennuma Himawari Fund Law Office.
Higashi has not finished cleaning his tsunami-flooded house, but he's already pledged to himself: "I'll devote my life as a lawyer to the restoration of my favorite city."
Immediately after the office reopened at 9 a.m. Monday, residents visited Higashi one after another.
"My house was washed away by tsunami," a man told Higashi with a grave look. "Where could I get financial support?"
"You'll be able to receive up to 3 million yen under the Natural Disaster Victims Relief Law if your house has been entirely destroyed," Higashi told him.
The man seemed relieved by Higashi's answer.
Higashi passed the national bar examination in 2001 and joined a law firm in Osaka. However, he began thinking he wanted to work in a place where people needed his services more.
In 2006, he applied for financial assistance from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which offers funds to help open law offices in areas with a shortage of lawyers.
Kesennuma has a branch of the Sendai District Court. The branch handled 587 civil and criminal cases in 2006. However, only two lawyers were practicing in the branch's jurisdiction at the time.
Higashi decided to relocate to Kesennuma because he had never lived in the Tohoku region. After opening his practice four years ago, he had no shortage of work.
On March 11, when the earthquake occurred, he was busy as usual. He was driving around Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture when the colossal tsunami approached. He immediately got out of his car and evacuated to a tall building nearby.
Four days after the disaster, Higashi finally made contact with his wife Yukiko, 33, and confirmed the safety of their three children, aged 1, 3 and 5.
Higashi's office on the second floor of a commercial building in central Kesennuma was flooded by the tsunami. The first floor of his house, for which Higashi still was paying a mortgage, also was flooded.
Though still in shock, on March 24 Higashi began dispensing free legal advice to residents in Kesennuma. It was then he realized many others were affected more seriously by the disaster than he was.
"I'm wondering if the company my husband was working for might have issued inappropriate evacuation instructions and caused his death," said one woman.
Higashi advised her calmly, "There's an option to seek compensation from the company."
He could feel the pain of her sorrow and resolved to open his office to aid disaster victims as quickly as possible.
After the earthquake, Higashi asked his parents in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, to look after their three children. But Higashi and his wife remained at an acquaintance's house in Kesennuma.
The Higashis asked a clothing shop they knew to allow them to open a makeshift office in its storage room. They brought out wet documents and muddy desks from the damaged office, and cleaned and dried them.
On the first day Higashi resumed his legal practice, he received many phone inquiries. A large number of residents lost all their property in the disaster, and were highly likely to face financial difficulty over the prospect of having to borrow money to rebuild their homes.
Higashi decided he would not charge for legal consultations until his clients felt confident they could rebuild their lives.
"Nowadays, I feel I'm truly fulfilling my calling as a lawyer to help people who need it most," Higashi said.
He has decided to stay in Kesennuma for the rest of his life to bear witness to and play a role in the devastated city's recovery.
(Apr. 8, 2011)
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