Miwa Shoda

Practice Areas

Miwa Shoda is Co-Chair of Jenner & Block’s Japan Practice. She is admitted to practice law both in Japan and the United States. Drawing on her extensive legal practice experience in both countries, deep understanding of Japanese business culture and language skills, she has significant experience representing Japanese companies in various litigation and transactional/corporate matters in the United States for almost 20 years. Miwa has repeatedly received awards, including “Top 100 Lawyers” by the Los Angeles Business Journal and “Top Women Lawyers” by Daily Journal, as well as “Visionaries in the Business of Law” by the Los Angeles Times and “Leaders of Influence: Minority Award” by the Los Angeles Business Journal. Chambers Global ranked Miwa as “Litigation-USA: Foreign Expert (Japan)” and “Dispute Resolution-Japan: Japan Expertise Based Abroad.”

After she passed the Japanese bar exam in 2001 (a period in which the passing rate was only 2.5 percent), Miwa began her career in 2004 as an attorney at Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, one of the top law firms in Japan. While there, she handled a wide range of international cases and matters, with particular emphasis on international litigation, privacy and data protection, intellectual property, and antitrust.

Since she joined Jenner & Block in 2009, Miwa has advised Japanese companies on a variety of legal matters, including litigation, M&A, corporate, intellectual property, privacy and data protection, antitrust and corporate crisis management, across the United States. She plays a leading role in most matters in which Jenner & Block represents Japanese companies. In addition, she often serves as outside general counsel for US subsidiaries of Japanese companies and advises them on most of their daily legal issues, including disputes, corporate matters, employment matters, and various contracts.

A wide variety of Japanese companies conducting business worldwide seek Miwa’s advice, including major electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing companies, multinational industry machinery manufacturers, banks and financial institutions, multinational trading companies (both sogo shosha and senmon shosha), multinational online retailing company, a leading furniture company, multinational retail chain of general merchandise and department stores, a leading clinical development contract research organization, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, video game developers and distribution companies, food companies, a major airline company, various retail companies, a major advertising and public relations company, and an AI-related software developer, among others.

Miwa’s extensive practice experience in both Japan and the United States is highly appreciated by Japanese clients who face legal issues in the United States, where the legal system and business culture differ vastly from that of Japan.