From Unemployment to YouTube Stardom: The Unique Resume of Takeshi Okano, Freelancer and Renowned Lawyer

Is it a crime if I pour lemon on someone’s fried chicken without their permission?” (Answer is at the end of the article.)

Takeshi Okano, 46, a lawyer, provides legal commentary on such questions in the Kansai dialect in “Otona Rokuho” (Crossmedia Publishing), published last October. He is also a legal YouTuber with 1.5 million registered users, and many people have probably seen him on social networking sites, where he provides interesting legal commentary.

Okano is also the founder of the Atom Law Office Group, which has expanded to 12 offices nationwide. One would think that he would have followed an elite path, but instead of going to college after high school, he moved to the United States. After working as a freelancer, he took the bar exam with a high school diploma, which is a unique career path. We asked Mr. Okano about his career to date.

Growing up in Hirakata City, Osaka, Mr. Okano was a very ordinary boy who would write in his elementary school essays about his “future dreams,” such as “running a detective agency with my friends” or “riding a motorcycle around the world. He had good study skills, but his grades were not particularly high. Why did he decide to go to the U.S. instead of going to college?

I did my best to pass the high school entrance exam, but after entering high school, I was in a band and didn’t study much. My grades were at the bottom of the class. I didn’t go to college because I didn’t make a strong decision. I simply didn’t find the career of graduating from a good university and getting a job at a good company attractive. I wondered if I would go in some different direction than others, not working for a company or something. I never felt like I had to go where everyone else was going.”

After graduation, Okano worked as a freelancer for a while before going to the United States. However, he did not have any firm motive for going, but rather, “I am from the Kansai region, so I thought that America would be a more exciting career path than Tokyo (laughs). So what was he doing in the U.S.?