Kevin Cunningham: キャリアストーリー

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Kevin Cunningham
Senior Professional
Global Innovation Business Unit
Intellectual Property Management Division
Litigation and Counsel Department

Changing course to make a long-time dream a reality

I am originally from Baton Rouge, the capital city of Louisiana. As an undergraduate, I studied at Tulane University in New Orleans, majoring in Neuroscience and Asian Studies. Although I thought I was going to become a doctor, my mother, father, uncle, and cousin—all of whom are attorneys—told me, “No way. You are definitely going to be an attorney.” In the end, they were correct.

I always knew I wanted to visit Japan, so I decided to also major in Asian Studies with a focus on Japanese mythology and history. My keen interest in Japanese mythology made me want to visit Japan, see its temples, and take some time to really explore the country. After graduation, I took six months off to live and work in Japan before starting medical school. During that time, I worked for Uenoshiba Junior High School in Sakai on what started off as a six-month contract. I ended up loving Japan so much that I stayed for three years. At the end of this three-year stint, I realized that I eventually wanted to live in Japan, but I also knew that I didn’t want to be a teacher forever. After much consideration, I decided the best way to gear my career for an eventual return to Japan was to go to law school, thus fulfilling my family’s prophecy.

Finding my way back to Japan

While in law school, I was able to spend one semester in Tokyo at Temple University, Japan Campus. Upon completing my law degree, I did two clerkships where I worked closely with judges, helping them to manage cases and render judicial opinions. My first clerkship was in New Jersey for the Burlington County Superior Court, Chancery Division, under the Honorable Judge Paula Dow. The second was in my hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I had the good fortune of working at the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana under the Honorable Judge Brian Jackson.

Following these clerkships, I had a little trouble finding a job and decided to pursue my Master of Laws degree (LL.M.). It just so happened that I had taken enough international law classes during my Juris Doctor (JD) program that I could get my LL.M. in only one semester, so I returned to Tokyo to obtain my LL.M. in Transnational Law at Temple University, Japan Campus. It was after this that I found a job in the U.S., where I worked for two years. While there, one of the professors I met in Tokyo while working on my LL.M. reached out to me with a great opportunity at NEC. I had always dreamed of returning to Japan, and it was just serendipity. It was the perfect position, and they were looking for someone with litigation experience, so I applied, and here I am.

The importance of communication skills

One thing that proved vital when living in Japan the first time around was the development of communication skills. It’s a rocky road to functional fluency, and I had only taken two semesters of Japanese classes before moving here, so I needed to figure out other ways to communicate. Making my point known in a way that’s easily understood by everyone and other skills I built while in Japan have been tremendously important throughout my career, especially in terms of learning how to communicate with different types of people.

Over the course of my clerkships and at the start of my legal career at a law firm, I served as an intern manager. My job was to explain complicated legal concepts to people who were still in law school. I find that these types of communication skills are still helpful to this day in my work at NEC. While my Japanese gets better with each passing day, there is still a language barrier I must overcome. That’s why figuring out how to communicate different concepts simply and effectively has been extremely helpful. It’s a skill that has been honed through all my experiences prior to joining NEC.

NEC: A company offering the best of both worlds

NEC was very attractive to me because I was hired to strengthen its litigation capabilities. The idea of being a member of a litigation team within a company was incredibly appealing because of my experience in litigation and courtroom procedures, my interest in intellectual property and technology, and my desire to practice internationally. With one of NEC’s current focuses being on bolstering its litigation area, I knew this would give me an opportunity to be on the ground floor of a growing program. That was ultimately one of the biggest reasons I decided to come to NEC.

The other thing I love about NEC, truthfully, is that while it is a massive and venerable Japanese company that can be very conservative and traditional in some ways, in other ways it’s really not. Surprisingly not, actually. I believe NEC is very accepting and understanding of cultural differences—much more so than I could have imagined for a company that’s as large and traditional as NEC. As an employee at NEC, I feel you get the best of both worlds—the respect of working for a large and well-established company and the forward-thinking and more progressive lean it seems to have over other companies. That’s what makes NEC such an attractive place to work.

Putting my education and experience to work at NEC

My job largely involves managing litigation. While we have legal capabilities here in Japan, much of our litigation occurs outside the country, primarily in the U.S. For litigation outside Japan, we need to hire outside attorneys, and one of my responsibilities is managing and strategizing for the cases they’re working on. We are in constant communication with our outside attorneys, and they often send drafts of various case-related documents for NEC’s review. I work together with the members of my team to review them, offer commentary, and speak with the outside attorneys to determine the best way going forward.

I also engage in a lot of advisory tasks. I meet with my supervisors to discuss what is going on and what we—as a client of these law firms—think is the best way to proceed, what we think we should do, and how we feel we need to respond or deal with whatever comes up.

Building relationships with colleagues and achieving work-life balance

I think I can say with reasonable certainty that the people I currently work with at NEC are some of the easiest to work with people I have ever had the pleasure of calling colleagues. We are dealing with many tough issues and stressful situations with a lot of money potentially on the line, yet everyone is always cool, calm, collected, kind, understanding, and jovial. Despite the immense pressure they are often under, they don’t let it impact anyone else.

My colleagues are easy to talk to and always willing to share their hobbies, talents, and interests with you. I feel like I work with whole people. My colleagues at NEC are very open about who they are, and I find this truly refreshing. It is nice to get to know your coworkers on this level and work with them in a very frictionless way.

I also think my work-life balance is excellent. I love that the members of our department can work from home. Of course, some of us come into the office on our own a couple of times a week, but there is no expectation or requirement to do so—I simply like to be there sometimes. Dealing with litigation in the U.S. sometimes requires you to work late hours due to the time difference and the need to speak with our counterparts in the late or early hours of the day. However, this doesn’t happen that often, and it’s not so burdensome that it feels like it impacts my work-life balance. It’s just part of the job.

Overcoming challenges with the support of colleagues

The biggest challenge I have faced so far has been the persistent language barrier, which really becomes an issue when trying to navigate all of the different systems NEC has in place and filing all of the paperwork required. I can read Japanese to a certain extent, but not at the level required to do all of this completely on my own. Thankfully, this is a challenge I have been able to overcome with the help of my excellent teammates. As NEC continues hiring more diverse talent, and especially if our department is interested in hiring more outside attorneys, these systems will need to evolve to accommodate those whose first language is not Japanese.

Future aspirations

I truly enjoy working for NEC and intend to stay for as long as the company will have me. On a personal level, I have two goals—to move my way up in the company and to improve my Japanese to a level that enables me to fully participate in meetings without others having to explain the details to me afterward. As far as what I am personally able to do for NEC, I hope to help NEC strengthen its already strong position moving forward when it comes to litigation, which I understand is partly why I was brought on board.

It’s who you know, not what you know

If you’re interested in coming to work for NEC, I really think it is important to reach out to people who already work here in the type of position you’re considering. Every job I have ever gotten was because I knew someone, reached out to someone, made a connection with someone, had coffee with someone, or got on a Zoom with someone. A lot of times, it’s who you know, not what you know.

Every year, Temple University asks me to chat with students who come to the Japan campus for their semester abroad. I always tell these students to keep in touch with their professors because that is exactly how I got my job here at NEC. Many of the professors at Temple University, Japan Campus have day jobs—they are partners at law firms, executives in companies, and even recruiters. It’s important to concentrate on making contacts and keeping in touch with your classmates from university, graduate school, or law school. As I mentioned earlier, it’s all about who you know. That’s probably my biggest advice to job seekers—don’t neglect relationships. They’re super important, especially as you move up in your career and former classmates begin getting jobs in higher positions and gaining hiring authority.

Considerations to make when thinking about building a career in Japan

While there are a myriad of reasons people choose to come to Japan, I think it’s more important to address some of the reasons people think they can’t come here to work. On paper, people will tell you that Tokyo is more expensive than other cities. This depends on where you are moving from, but I find myself with much more disposable income than I had at my last job in the U.S. And although some may be concerned that jobs in Japan will not pay as much, especially for an attorney coming from a law firm in the U.S. to a company like NEC, you also have to consider quality of life. I have found that my quality of life is much better here than in the United States.

Another reason that often comes up is the language barrier. Some think they can’t live here because they don’t speak the language, but English is compulsory for students in Japan from middle school through high school, and most people can understand English even if they don’t feel comfortable speaking it. As such, you can survive here with little Japanese, but the experience is enriched the more Japanese you can learn. What it really comes down to is the difference between surviving in Japan and thriving in Japan, especially if you want to work for a Japanese company.

My Favorite CoV

I identify most with “Encourage openness. Stimulate the growth of all.” As an attorney and from a personal standpoint, I believe integrity is vitally important. However, integrity is best facilitated through open communication. If you are unable to actively or effectively communicate your concerns or opinions, it will be difficult to exercise integrity. There are times when I have to recommend that we wait and look at a situation more closely even though everyone else wants to push forward. I can do so because when you belong to a company like NEC, where openness and communication are encouraged, it becomes far easier to do your job with integrity.

CoV: Code of Values. This code of conduct indicates the values and behavior that all members of the NEC Group must demonstrate.