A Story Of Starting A Business In Japan
<i>From my understanding, lawyers working with non-Japanese-speaking clients charge a premium.</i><p>This is true for essentially all professional services in Japan (and, relatedly, can be true for renting depending on how one goes about that), and it is not driven entirely by costs.  Partly, this is simply "You require something which is <i>much</i> harder to deliver than standard services; this restricts your labor pool by > 98% here; deal with the increased price."  Partly there exists a bit of rent-seeking behavior that might be politely termed "the English tax."<p>You will occasionally find service providers who quote the English tax rate even when the assumption is services will not actually be provided in English.  I'm generally polite when asking for the literate professional rate precisely once.  (It is sometimes called out on an obvious line item on the invoice; it is often more subtle.)