Mark A. Levin
Director, University of Hawai’i Center for Japanese Studies
Director, Pacific-Asian Legal Studies Program
Professor of Law
Professor Levin joined the faculty in January 1997 from the Law Department of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. His interest in Japan began after his 1983 graduation from Yale Law School, when he worked in international business and financial transactions at Masuda and Ejiri, one of the leading Tokyo international law offices at the time.
From 1984 to 1986, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle, Washington, and then practiced in Seattle for five years as a corporate attorney, representing numerous Japanese clients. Professor Levin also earned an LL.M. from the University of Washington’s Asian Law Program (Japanese Law Emphasis) in 1990.
In 1992, Professor Levin was one of the first recipients of a Blakemore Foundation Grant for Advanced Asian Language Study, which enabled him to study at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama for one year. This was followed by a Japan Foundation Fellowship for one year of research at the Tokyo University Faculty of Law. He was then invited to Hokkaido to become the first non-Japanese person given full status as a faculty member at the law department there, teaching a variety of subjects concerning American law and advising graduate student researchers on related topics.
Professor Levin’s scholarly publications have considered diverse topics including judicial administration and procedural justice in Japan, smoking and tobacco regulation in Japan, legal education in Japan, and the legal circumstances of race and indigenous peoples in Japan. Briefer writings have looked at Japanese legal history, Japan’s lay judge system and criminal justice in Japan, and the April 2007 Japanese Supreme Court decision concerning the nation’s history of sexual slavery and forced labor during mid-20th century wartime engagements in Asia and the Pacific. Works have been published in leading law journals in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Professor Levin’s current research is centered around a multi-year project focusing on gender and law in Japan. Already complete are a bibliography (with Kallista Hiraoka, WSRSL ‘20) of English language publications in the field through 2018, and a working paper looking at Japan’s first women lawyers and related subjects. In progress now, a longer piece exploring the history and status quo of women in the Japanese Legal Academy aimed for publication in English and Japanese (with Makoto Kurokawa, WSRSL ‘20).
Professor Levin, just elected to the Executive Committee of the American Association of Law Schools’ Section on East Asian Law and Society, has also served on the Editorial Advisory Board for The Journal of Japanese Studies, the State of Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s Committee on Certification of Court Interpreters and its Permanent Committee on Equality and Access to the Courts, and as Vice-Chair of the State of Hawai‘i Tobacco Prevention and Control Trust Fund Advisory Board from 2007 – 2009. In 2015, Professor Levin was selected as a member of the 5th cohort of the University of Hawai‘i President’s Emerging Leadership Program. He currently serves on the University’s Center for Japanese Studies’ Executive Board ex officio in light of his upcoming role as the Center’s director from this coming August, and has also served on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Faculty Senate and as chair of the Japan Studies Endowment Committee.
Educational Background
BBA high distinction University of Michigan 1980
JD Yale Law School 1983
LLM University of Washington 1990
Email: levin@hawaii.edu
Phone:(808) 956-5569