Masako Nakata
Masako Nakata or Masako Tanaka was one of Japan's first women lawyers.Biography
Masako Tanaka was born in Tokyo on December 1, 1910. At the time the definition of someone who could enter the modern legal profession in Japan was "A Male Japanese national" who must be at least twenty years old. This wasn't amended until 1933. It was 1936 before women were allowed enter the bar. So it was then that women began to take the exam for entrance to the bar.
Nakata was one of the first three women, including Yoshiko Mibuchi and Ai Kume, to pass the exam in 1938. The women were about to study law from 1929 at Women's College, Meiji University. All three became fully qualified lawyers after an eighteen-month internship, in 1940. Nakata worked in the Tottori prefecture and became the first woman to be president of the Tottori Bar association in 1969 and went on to become director of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. Nakata died in Tottori on October 15, 2002.
