Bar Exam
Law grad who married Japanese princess has this in common with 23% of repeat test-takers of New York bar exam
Kei Komuro and now-former Japanese Princess Mako in September 2017 attending a press conference in Tokyo’s Motoakasaka district. After a nearly three-year postponement of their marriage, they married in October 2021. Photo from Kyodo News via the Associated Press.
The husband of a now-former Japanese princess has passed the New York bar exam on his third try.
Kei Komuro, a graduate of the Fordham University School of Law, was among the 66% of test-takers who passed the July bar exam in New York, report Reuters, NHK via Original Jurisdiction and the Japan Times. The pass rate for repeat test-takers, however, was only 23%.
Komuro married Japanese Princess Mako in October 2021. Komuro is a commoner, and the marriage meant that Mako had to leave the imperial family.
Komuro was working as a law clerk at Lowenstein Sandler, but his name is no longer on the law firm’s website, according to Original Jurisdiction. It’s unknown whether Komuro left the firm or whether his name was scrubbed from the website because his marriage was controversial in Japan, according to Original Jurisdiction author David Lat.
Lowenstein Sandler did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s questions about Komuro’s status at the law firm.
Okuno Yoshihiko, a lawyer who heads the Japanese law firm where Komuro once worked, told NHK that Komuro let him know that he passed the bar. Komuro told Yoshihiko that he will strive to become a better lawyer, and he is very happy. Yoshihiko had helped Komuro move to the United States to study law.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Weekly Briefs: ‘Copyright troll’ lawyer is suspended; law grad who married Japanese princess fails bar”
