Over the years, Obiter has featured some of the more esoteric out-of-office pursuits of its readers, but few have matched those of Andrew Clare, head of the corporate department at Lancashire firm Napthens, who has spent five years translating a Japanese novel into English. And now, the 288-page Kiri no hata (translated as Pro Bono) is due to be published this month by Vertical Inc of New York.


We're told that Mr Clare began to learn Japanese at Sheffield University 20 years ago, and started on the translation during evenings and weekends while based at the Tokyo office of US law firm Latham & Watkins in 2002.



The book, by best-selling Japanese author Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992), features the attempts of a woman to obtain pro bono help from a well-known Tokyo lawyer to support her wrongly-accused brother, who has been arrested on a murder charge. The story puts a spotlight on what the award-winning Matsumoto, one of Japan's most prolific authors who wrote 400 books in 50 years, saw as the failings of the Japanese judicial system. He wrote the story in the wake of several prominent miscarriages of justice.



Mr Clare said: 'Despite his popularity in the East, much of Seicho Matsumoto's work continues to be unknown in the West, but the stories have many well-drawn observations that are still timely today. While, on the surface, they are simply detective fiction, the author drew on social and political problems in post-war Japan and, in Pro Bono, on the legal system.



'So far, only a fraction of his work has been translated, and while I had no intention for this to become a published work when I first began the work as a hobby, I hope I can add to his readership in the English-speaking world.'