Trust your gut with your law career in Japan with Bonnie Dixon

Even when your law career doesn’t go smoothly, perhaps you have been laid off or there are other challenges on your path, trusting your gut can help you to find the right way forward. My guest is Bonnie Dixon, the first foreign woman to be made a partner of a Japanese law firm. You will not believe how Bonnie created this opportunity for herself. Bonnie also shows us other ways we can serve our countries, either as a commercial attache in business or in the community as a scout leader.
In this episode you’ll hear:

How Bonnie came to Japan for the first time as a child and the influence it had on the trajectory of her life
Surviving two crumbling law firms, but finding her way by trusting her gut
Refusing a job offer but laying a groundbreaking opportunity on the table in return that was accepted
The importance of marketing and networking skills for lawyers and the different ways that can look
Her favourite Netflix show and other fun facts

About Bonnie
Bonnie Dixon is a Partner at Atsumi & Sakai in Tokyo. In 2005, when Bonnie joined the firm she became the first non-Japanese attorney to become a partner of a domestic Japanese law firm since the Occupation of Japan.

Bonnie serves clients in cross-border transactions and dispute resolution matters and her practice includes general corporate matters, mergers and acquisitions, employment law, cross border litigation and antitrust matters. She’s consistently in Best Lawyer and other rankings.

Bonnie is licensed to practice law in the State of New, admitted in 1982 and is admitted to the Court of Appeals of the First Circuit. Bonnie is registered in Japan as a Foreign Registered Lawyer. She has extensive experience in international transactions, cross border labor and employment, structured finance, banking transactions, investment funds, etc.
Educated at the University of Michigan with a B.A., majoring in Japanese and Political Science in 1978, and the University of Michigan Law School, attaining her J.D. in 1981, Bonnie speaks and reads fluent Japanese and has worked in Tokyo for more than twenty years in the aggregate.

Before returning to Tokyo in 2002, Bonnie practiced law in New York City, where she became a partner of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, and later of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.
Recently, Atsumi & Sakai has established an office in New York, to be formally named as Atsumi & Sakai New York LLP. This expansion will be led by Bonnie, who will serve as managing partner of the New York office.
In her spare time, Bonnie produces translations of Kabuki and Bunraku dramas.  Her translation commentaries can be heard through the Earphone Guide service available for rent at the National Theater in Tokyo and at the National Bunraku Theater in Osaka. She is an avid hiker and enjoys camping and other outdoor activities.  Bonnie was the founder and for years served as the Scoutmaster of Troop 5 of the Far East Council of the Boy Scouts of America.  During her tenure as Scoutmaster, Bonnie was the only female scoutmaster of the BSA program in all of Asia.  She currently serves as an Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 5’s female scouts.
Connect with Bonnie
Please email Catherine to be connected with Bonnie.
Links
The Tokyo American Club: https://www.tokyoamericanclub.org/index.php/en/
Connect with Catherine
Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/