Disruptive of legal systems, anthropogenic climate change presents several conundrums for lawyers and defies the way they think about and deal with disaster risks. Japan is no exception. Part of a research in progress, this short paper raises the question of the practical and theoretical conditions under which climate disaster risks arise as a new area of legal practice in Japan. Exploratory, it focuses the discussion on the skills and knowledge that practicing lawyers can mobilize to address the many legal disruptions generated by a continuously rising risk of more frequent and higher-impact climate change-induced extreme events.