Education
Shimizu studied law at Tokyo University, earning a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1983. Known in Japanese as Tokyo Daigaku, the university is one of the country's oldest and most prominent public universities, and its law faculty has long been a major source of Japan's judges, prosecutors, and lawyers.
Admission to the legal profession followed a separate stage of training. The Legal Training and Research Institute was established in May 1947 as a training facility affiliated with the Supreme Court of Japan, and it has since served as the sole supplier of personnel to the Japanese legal profession. Shimizu's admission to the bar in 1985 places him within this training system.
