Managing Partner Nozomu Ohara

Nozomu Ohara was awarded a bachelors of law degree from Kyoto University in 1966 and passed the Japanese Bar Examination in the same year. He has been a member of the Osaka bar and Japan Federation of Bar Associations since 1969. He continued his legal education by earning an LLM at Kyoto University and an LLM from Harvard Law School in 1976 as a Fulbright Exchange Grantee. In 1979, Mr. Ohara was registered as a licensed patent attorney by the Japan Patent Attorneys Association.

Mr. Ohara’s long experience practicing law in Osaka has firmly established his firm, Ohara & Furukawa (formerly Ohara Law Office), as a pillar of the Kansai legal community. Furthermore, Mr. Ohara has held many prestigious positions within local and international legal institutions, including acting as the Executive Director of the Japan Association of Arbitrators, PPID Council of the International Bar Association and acting as Chairman of the Foreign Lawyers and International Legal Practice Committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

Mr. Ohara has a strong background in intellectual property and international family law, stemming from his time spent working at Whitman & Ransom in New York and Fenwick, Stone, Davis & West in Palo Alto. However, domestic matters also make up a strong portion of the Ohara & Furukawa’s general practice. Ohara & Furukawa maintains a staff of talented and bilingual family law attorneys who specialize in international family law matters. As such, Mr. Ohara has established himself as a leading figure consulting on Japan’s implementation of the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction.