New law students are flummoxed by the timing of an announcement about plans to yank their apprenticeship grants worth millions of yen.

It was a tough decision for Motohiro Kasahara, 38, to quit his company job in March to attend prestigious Aoyama Gakuin University Law School in Tokyo. But he figured his family could scrape by on his savings.

He also expected to graduate in three years with a government-paid apprenticeship afterward. It was supposed to be a golden opportunity in this year of law school reform.

Even so, Kasahara estimated he would finish with a debt of at least 10 million yen.

But now it looks like his debt will be much higher-and he might end up with nothing for the legal path he trod-thanks to new government policies that have whammied new law students.

The government is not only finagling with bar-exam graduation rates, it also plans to wipe out grants for legal apprenticeships, which all students take for a year. The plan is to start in fiscal 2006, when this year's newest students will be ready to pass the bar.

And here's the rub: The government only decided to announce this radical change to the grant system in June, months after all those mid-career professionals had quit their jobs to go back to school.

Students are stunned.

``I can't afford to increase my debt,'' Kasahara said. ``Students like me, who crossed the line by quitting jobs, had to make difficult decisions economically and in terms of losing their former careers. ... This is a grave problem.''

Kasahara and other law school students formed a group to protest. They are collecting signatures to request the government and ruling coalition lawmakers review the bill. They say students' voices should also be taken into account when changing the system.

`How can I repay (the debt) if I fail?

HIROKO KOTAKE 31-year-old,student of Tokyo Metropolitan University Law School

Still, the government plans to submit the bills necessary for the change to the extraordinary Diet session that convened Tuesday.

The problems started with the overhaul of the law school system this April. Sixty-eight new law schools opened, with the intention of increasing the number of law school graduates. The number of students expected to pass the bar exam each year was set to jump from 1,500 to 3,000 by fiscal 2010 to give more people access to legal aid.

Many quit their jobs to get on the legal track. To do so takes a chunk of money: Most schools cost from 800,000 yen to 3 million yen a year, with courses of two or three years.

Students must also pass the bar, and then work as legal apprentices at the Supreme Court's Legal Research and Training Institute, the nation's training center.

Previously, apprentices received grants of about 3 million yen annually to attend the institute. The state-paid salaries played an important role for opening legal careers to lower-income students.

But now the government has made two major changes.

First, the rules on passing the bar are different. Students have only three opportunities in a five-year period to pass. This has been made more difficult by a decision announced last week by the bar exam council. It has set a quota, at 34 percent, from fiscal 2006 of the number of people who will pass the bar. It coincides with the start of the new testing system. The ratio will be further lowered to around 20 percent after fiscal 2007. Results will be graded on a curve.

(The government had initially planned for 70 to 80 percent of law school graduates to pass the reformed bar exam. The old exam will be phased out by fiscal 2010.)

Second, the government is planning to wipe out the grants to apprentices at the training institute, starting in fiscal 2006. From then, students who can't pay will have to take out loans or otherwise finance their apprenticeships.

The government says this revocation of grants is necessary to cut the government's payload, especially with an estimated increase in law school grads.

Others have criticized the grants as being too favorable for legal trainees, anyway.

Opinions vary in legal circles.

The Supreme Court, which operates the training center, is backing the shift to the loan system, partly to stymie criticism from those who think the training center itself is a waste.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations, meanwhile, is against the loans, claiming no one should be barred from legal studies just because they are poor.

A senior official of the Justice Ministry says the state-paid system should be maintained by reducing the pay per trainee.

Students say the plan to eliminate paid apprenticeships is misguided and doesn't take into account the wide range of work that legal experts do.

``It's wrong to say that the state-paid system can be abolished because the trainees can earn big money after becoming lawyers,'' said Toru Ishii, 22, a student of the Chuo Law School in Tokyo.

Hiroko Kotake, a 31-year-old student of the Tokyo Metropolitan University Law School, agrees.

``If we have a huge debt burden, we will be forced to make profits,'' she says. ``But that would make it difficult for us to do pro bono work after becoming lawyers.''

Kotake lives on her savings from creating Internet sites at home while she reared a child. She decided not to borrow money for tuition because she was too nervous about the potential debt.

``How can I repay (the debt) if I fail?'' she asked.(IHT/Asahi: October 14,2004) (10/14)