Returning to Big Law after In-house with Mariko Mimura

Welcome to the first episode of Season 3! You will love the Lawyer Extraordinaire for Episode One: Mariko Mimura. Mariko is a great example that stepping upwards and outwards is entirely possible at any stage of your career. She is also living proof that you can go from working in-house and return to a law firm role as an attractive value add to a firm having excelled on the inside of business at the coal face. She is an inspiration for how we can continue to reinvent ourselves on our own terms.
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In this episode you’ll hear:

How a chance meeting at a study group led Mariko to go into law
Mariko’s secondments to the US and creating her own way by avoiding more legal studies and going straight into practice
Mariko’s reasoning behind her choices to be an outside director and an outside statutory auditor in a variety of industries
How Mariko transitioned back from in-house to Big Law at the age of 60
Her favourite books and other fun facts

About Mariko
Mariko graduated with an LLB from Waseda University in 1980, graduated with an M.A. from the Chuo University Graduate School of Law and graduated from the Ph.D. course in 1989. Mariko was admitted to the Bar in Japan in 1992 and joined the firm of Braun, Moriya, Hoashi & Kubota from 1992-1993, followed by Takaishi Law Office from 1993-1995. In 1995 Mariko joined Nishimura and Partners, now renamed Nishimura and Asahi
During the first phase – from 1995 to 2004, Mariko gained overseas experience in law practice in the United States on secondment to the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP (1999-2000) and was secondment in-house to a startup battery company as Vice President and General Counsel of Quallion LLC from 2000-2001. Upon returning to Japan Mariko took up a senior role in-house as ExecutiveOfficer and Legal Executive Manager of GE Healthcare Japan Corporation (2005-2009). Mariko has held outside role Part-time Statutory Auditor of GE Healthcare affiliate company Nihon Medi-Physics Co., Ltd in 2008. From 2018 she became Outside Director, of childrens’ toy-maker Takara TOMY Company, Ltd and is also an Outside Director at precious metal company, Tanaka Holdings (Tanaka Kinzoku)
She has further in-house experience as Director of Legal and Intellectual Property Executive Manager of Novartis Holding Japan K.K. from 2010-2015, was concurrently Corporate Officer and General Counsel at Novartis (2010-2015), and then became Director of Glaxo Smith Kline KK from 2015-2018.
In her 60’s Mariko returned to Nishimura & Asahi as Of Counsel where she focuses on the area of life science.
Connect with Mariko via Catherine
Links
Shangri-La Hotel, Tokyo Station: http://www.shangri-la.com/tokyo/shangrila/about/