 Thank you for joining us for another edition of Hawaii State Bar Association's Living Legend Lawyers on Think Tech Hawaii. This program is part of a series sponsored by the Hawaii State Bar Association that seeks to recognize and chronicle Hawaii attorneys who have made significant contributions to our profession and the community. I'm Craig Wachtel, an attorney with the law firm of Bays, Lung, Rose, and Homa and a former president of the Hawaii State Bar Association. I have the pleasure of serving as host of today's program, which is entitled, An Incredible Journey Overcoming the Odds on the Road to Success. During the next 30 minutes, you're going to meet someone whose story is truly astounding — I mean chicken skin type stuff — from a painful operation in first grade that kept him out of school for five months to being so painfully shy that a classmate later told him she thought he was physically unable to speak. Our guest today started his academic life failing — not once, not twice, but flunking at almost every school he attended. He seemed destined to struggle. Future prospects? Well, I'm not sure there were many. Now fast forward and consider this. The same guy is now an accomplished criminal defense attorney, who's been named lawyer of the year in his areas of practice for the past five years. He served as a first senior law clerk and staff attorney for the United States District Court, with a commonwealth of the northern Burriana Islands, and as a special prosecutor for the trust territory of the Pacific Islands. He's been a teacher, a panelist, an instructor, a lecturer, and he even wrote a script for public television show. He served in the U.S. Army and held high security clearances, and he served on more committees and organizations in and out of the bar than I can even mention. He presently serves as president of the Hawaii State Bar Association, and despite his busy schedule, he's made time to be here with me today. His name? Howard Luke. Howard? I think this is the first time, at least for me, to have a sitting HSBA president with us on the show. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much. In fact, those words are so great. I'm thinking maybe we should just wrap it up and quit while we're ahead. But thank you so much. I just, I was touched, moved, and sort of inspired, motivated by many of the story aspects of your life that started out from relatively humble beginnings. And I want—I'm hoping you could walk us through some of that and share with us a little bit, you know, your childhood growing up, Kapahulu, if I'm correct? Right, yeah. I had a wonderful childhood. You know, it's—my parents were great people. My siblings, my brothers, and my sister were wonderful, so I couldn't ask for a better family. I grew up in Kapahulu on Francis Street. Many people might know where that is. And across the street, we had a fellow named Tutu Man, so he used to take us fishing in Waikiki. In those days, you could go down, catch fish right from the shore. This is in the 40s, late 40s, and lay net, and we had beautiful childhood. And my father and mother also owned a ranch in the Waianae Range in Wahiawa. So, you know, that was fun. Do you have a picture number one here? Take a look at— Oh, yeah. And you're sitting— I'm the little guy in the—am I wearing a diaper there? I hope not. But if I—that's me. On the right-hand side, correct? Yeah. Yeah, it's—the boy in the middle is my older brother and my sister next to him, to his right and to his left, that's me. So that would be the territory of Hawaii. The license plate says 1948, does it? I believe so. I think so. I think it's about—if it's 48, I would be about four years old, by sure, looking younger than that. Maybe it's 1946. I'm not sure. Territory of Hawaii, our license plate. And look at this picture number two, because this goes to school, and some of the struggles that you had. Now, what grade would this be? Okay, that's definitely Kahumano School. By looking at the teacher on the left, that's Mrs. Macario. I remember the names of all my teachers in elementary school. Wow. Yeah. Third grade, and if you look at the bottom of the picture, the second row from the bottom on the far left, the girl with a demure smile with both hands on her lap—I guess most of the girls have that, with a white dress. You know who that is? I don't, and you promised to tell me. Oh, okay. That's Judge Marie Milks. Retired. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. And then, of course, the boys, we all had our Roy Rogers shirts and our cap pistols that are concealed there. Well, that's you on the top row, third from the right, is that correct? That's it. That's me, right? Okay. You struggled some in school. You shared a little bit of that with me. Yeah. Academically, I never really had a difficult time academically, but I think it had to do a lot with circumstances initially. You mentioned that in the introduction, there was a challenge I had in the first grade. So I had a brain tumor, and the operation at that time—I think today it wouldn't be that dicey, but it was—we learned it was pretty risky. I would have a priest in the hospital praying over me every day, and the operation went well, but it did keep me out of school for about five months, I miss most of it. And then the school said, you know, you're not going to the second grade, but my teacher was lovely, Mrs. Chung. So she had me over at her house in the summer, had me catch up with the classes, and then I went on to the second grade. Oh, well, that's a fantastic story of her effort also to help you out, then. Great teachers. Okay. But you grew up shy. You don't strike me as someone who's shy at all. Yeah. You know, I think in elementary school I was like regular, but I took a turn. And I think when I went to junior high school at Washington Intermediate, it was a rugged school in those days. I mean, there were—you could—if you wanted to see a fight, you could probably see one at least one or two every week. There were a lot of things. I started hanging around with a different crowd than I had in elementary school. We didn't do anything criminal, but we had other interests rather than studying and being—and, you know, we got into different things, including cars and a little later, and other things that young adolescent boys are interested in. Sure. Yeah. Sure. So you had mentioned—so you struggled through some time, Sarah, flunking some classes, having a difficult time. Were you thinking at that time I want to go into a profession like law? No, not at all. In my sophomore year at McKinley, I failed my—this may be more information than I should be revealing, but I didn't—I failed my social studies and history class, the core classes. We were in the—what was then called the smart class, and then, you know, everyone in that class went on to become—just about everyone, a professional in different fields medicine, and there's only one lawyer out of that class. But at any rate, I didn't do so well. So I managed to—I was the first of two students who went to high school, my sophomore year in night school, adult education, and my junior year during the regular school year. So I became a day and night student. I did my sophomore and junior year together. Is that right? Yeah. And were you doing a part-time job or other things at that time also? Yeah. I always worked. From the time I could work at age 16, but in my senior year, I didn't have enough units to graduate. So there we were in the middle of the auditorium practicing for graduation, singing, you know, You'll Never Walk Alone, Elvis's Sparring Songs. And this girl comes up to the microphone and says, with a following five boys, please see Mr. Weiser, boys' counselor. And I was one of the five, and he said, well, guys, you're not graduating. So I didn't graduate then. I did work. I did have a full-time job. I did work at least a minimum 40 hours a week when I was in high school. The purity in, if anybody remembers it, the older people might, which was on K. L. Moko Street near Baratanya. Okay. We have a picture, I think. I don't know if this is your graduation photo. Yeah. Is that your graduation photo? Yeah. There's a 61. I don't know why. The photo must have been taken to 61 because the graduating class was 1962. I didn't graduate until, well, I did graduate in the summer of 62 at the end of the school, three months after the school year. But I did get my graduation tassel from the president in our 50th reunion. We'd gone to the 2012 graduating class in McKinney High School, and I got my graduation tassel, and I told a few people there with me to please be quiet. I'm listening to my valedictory. Oh, that's fantastic. So you came out of school. What was the plan? The plan, I surprised myself. I got into the University of Hawaii, and I attended school there, but I still didn't study. I read, in three semesters, I recall reading two books. I read the entire sociology textbook the night before the final, and I read Albert Camus, A Stranger. And that's the only two books I ever remember cracking open in a year and a half of college. Needless to say, that didn't serve me well, and so I was asked to leave, which I did. And you ended up going into the Army, correct? I did, yes. I think we've got a photo of that as well, that's photo number four. Yeah. This is you, right? That's me, yeah. And you are the one far up or left, yeah? That's me with that. It's either a lucky strike, or it looks too long to be a lucky strike. I mean, it's a cool cigarette, because it's probably filtered. Where is this? 96 cents a carton. Where is this? This is in Asmara, Eritrea, which was then part of Ethiopia, and just about that time, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was about maybe three years running, and the Army had a base up on a mountain about 8,000 feet above sea level, where we had a communication site, and that's where this picture was taken. Those guys I still keep in touch with, by the way, because I won't make this too long. The fellow to my left, standing up, is Bruce Stevens from Kona, Kona Wayena in the Big Island. He was an all-star basketball player, and he actually led the team. I think they won the state championship, if I'm not mistaken. But he was an all-star player, even though he's a pretty short guy, as you can see. He's currently living in Wisconsin. So you came out of the Army, what was the plan then? Then I realized, that's when I started studying, when I was on base and off-hours, and I realized that I had one shot to make it. After Ethiopia, I went to the Pentagon and worked there for about two weeks. They moved two friends of mine and myself out to Suitland, Maryland, worked at a small communications center, and then one night I saw the Johnny Carson show, one of his guests was a fellow named Joseph Sorrentino. Joe Sorrentino was even a bigger goof-off than I was. He actually had a juvenile record, and he was an ex-Marine, had been bounced out of Marines. He recovered and went back in the Marines. He finished, and he went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he got on Johnny Carson's show because he was a valedictorian of Harvard Law School and giving what was then described as the greatest valedictory speech Harvard ever had, Harvard Law School. Wow. And I thought, wow, this guy can screw up as badly as he did. Maybe there's hope for me. So I thought, I'd better go back to school. And did that motivate you then for law school as well? It did. Well, first for undergraduate, and I finally finished at the University of California at Berkeley. I hid my old grades, by the way, because I would never have gotten into any college. But so I graduated and I felt guilty, so I told the counselor, look, I've been to school before. The counselor said, well, forget about it. You're good. So that's what I did. And I was really close to going on to graduate school and English literature because I fell in love with Shakespeare and Chaucer and the Renaissance and the Middle Ages literature, both English as well as comparative literature. But you were drawn into the law somehow. You decided to go on. I came back to Hawaii and I decided to work for a while, still not sure. And then it took me two additional years. I've been a slow mover. And then I decided I was working for the United Airlines on the ramp, as a ramp serviceman loading and unloading planes. Great job. I transferred to the San Francisco airport, planning to go to law school in the evening. When I arrived there, I realized that, hey, I got a little money and I have the GI Bill. The school offered me a full-time, daytime position. So I took it. And that's when I went to law school and finished. And in going to law school, were you enamored with the idea of being a trial attorney or were you looking at it, at doing something else with a law degree? Or what were you thinking? Good question. I had two externships. One was at the district attorney's office in San Francisco, Division of Consumer Fraud and White Collar Crime. I also had a externship at the prison law office in San Quentin, California. But I took a trial practice class and we had a joint program with the Foster City Police Department. And the person who led the program mentioned me to the class and to the recruits, the police recruits, is how they can expect cross-examination would go. So I thought maybe I have a little bit of talent here, I don't know. But so that got me going. Well, fantastic, because you came out of law school and went on quite an adventure. And when we come back from the break, I want to talk a little bit more about that. Sure. Thanks. You know, you're watching Hawaii's living legend lawyers. And we're talking with Attorney Howard Luke, the President of our Hawaii State Bar Association. We'll be right back on Think Tech Hawaii. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Despeng, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Stephanie Muck, and I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pomei Weigert. And we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs, and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii. We are on Thursdays at 4 p.m. And we hope we'll see you next time. Well, Lohan, welcome back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, and this is Hawaii State Bar Association's Living Legend Lawyers. This is an incredible journey, overcoming the odds of the road to success. And I'm talking with Attorney Howard Luke, the current president of our Hawaii State Bar Association. Howard, where we left off, one of the more exciting parts of your life has yet to come. And I want to talk about that a little bit, because it came about in a very interesting way. Tell us about how you end up in the middle of the Pacific. And I don't mean here in Hawaii, where you end up in the Northern Mariana Islands. How did that start? So I wasn't really interested in doing a traditional law firm, law practice. So I became a hearing officer, which was then the Department of Social Services and Housing. And I had a hearing on Kauai. At the same time, President Jimmy Carter had appointed Alfred Loretta, who was a circuit court judge on Kauai, Fifth Circuit, as the first federal judge for the Northern Mariana Islands, and the first federal judge of Philippine ancestry. So I visited him. I asked him if he was hiring any staff attorneys. He said, yeah, he's hiring a staff attorney in the law clerk. Can you send me some writing samples? I sent it to him. He read them. He said, you're coming back. I'll be back in a month. And these are the words he hired me with. He said to me, Howard, are you sure he wanted this job? I can't give it away. So I said, I want this job. I loved it because I had in mind not just being a lawyer, but my great passion was for diving in the ocean. And I dived all over before that, the Red Sea, of course, Africa. That's right. You're a swimmer, diver, and sportsman, fishing. In the Bahamas, of course, all over Hawaii and elsewhere. So I thought, wow, to go to Micronesia and dive. So off we went. OK. And so you went there. And the first two days, as I recall, was essentially swamping out a courthouse and a house. The court was temporarily placed at the side pan intercontinental inn. Just before we arrived there, about a week before, there was an explosion in the kitchen. I don't think anybody was hurt, I'm not sure. But it destroyed a portion of the kitchen that became our courtroom, a small little room, not much bigger than where we're sitting. And the judge had a metal desk. And this was a federal judge. And that was our courtroom. And it was fun. OK. And you ended up having to clean up. And I think there had been a rainfall and everything. And then try and develop a library. That's correct. Well, the first two weeks, I probably did something I was more accustomed to and had more ability in doing, which was sweeping up and mopping and cleaning the judge's residence on Capitol Hill, as well as the part of the courtroom and fixing things up and getting ready to go so that we could convene a first session in federal court. And you have the distinction of being the one to sort of have set up the federal law library over there. It's an amazing thing. Of course, I'm sure it's still true today. But as a federal law clerk, in the first court of his kind in the Mariana Islands, it was a temporary court before we got there. But I was given card of launch to order the law library. So we had a separate room that was bigger than the court itself. It became the courtroom library. And everything was brand new. I would order books, and they would come in as a huge library that books that no one had ever opened before. It was a great thing that was done for the courts. Well, I'm going to name three things. And I want you to tie them together into the story that I think I have heard. And the three things are a longboat ride, a tennis court, basketball court, and a beer can. Oh, OK, OK. I know what you're talking about. So I was an assignment to several courts in Micronesia, one of which was the Territory High Court of Palau. And I went there. There was a system was a little different. They had a judge that was American trained and two assessors. And they were really, really good. I mean, they were very, very smart and intelligent. You had to ask questions. But that's another story. Episode you're talking about is we had a case that was to be tried on the island of Peleliu, which is where the Marines took a terrible beating during World War II approaching the beach. And they were just decimated by the Japanese who were waiting. But when we went out there, it was to decide and determine who was really the chief of this district in Peleliu. And so the case was held on a basketball court. There's a small little wooden table, smaller than the table that we were speaking on. And the judge, Judge Mamoru Nakamura, sat there presided. I did mention somewhere that in the course of the proceedings, this is outdoor, a dog came up, peed on the bench. It was the basketball court when I got there. It surprised me because there were tables. And they had all these Budweiser cans. I thought, this is a pretty cool thing. You know, they drink beer during the trial. But it turned out that that was not the case. The beer cans were empty. And they were put there out of respect because the spectators, most of whom chewed beetle nut, would spit the beetle nut juice into the cans rather than on the floor as a sign of disrespect. So it was a wonderful, interesting case. We have a photo of photo number five. Take a look at this. And this, I believe, is you and a successful fish expedition? Right. That's me with more hair on my head and less hair on my upper lip. And this is out in the northern Marianas. This is not Palau. That's a whole string of Mempachi. They call it Saga Melon out there and other fish. So the diving was really good. So that's just a few fish I shot that day and brought up. That's fantastic. So you've got a great chance to enjoy all kinds of stuff at the islands. It was wonderful, wonderful time. It was a magical time, actually. And then back to Hawaii. Back to Hawaii. You did some traveling in between, and then you came back to Hawaii. I did. I wanted to do trials. And I was offered a job in the northern Marianas. But I thought it might be better and a bigger jurisdiction back here at home. So I came back. And at that time, Chuck Marzlin, who was a prosecutor, hired me. And I extended my time to start by traveling around the world. I don't know how I did it. No Google, no maps. I just managed to travel all over the Far East, India, up in the Pakistan Kashmir area and to the mountains. It was wonderful. Little sketchy at times, but really great time. Traveled alone. So I started the prosecutors. And immediately, we got our feet wet. We jumped into the car, did trials. In four and a half months, I was up at Circuit Court doing my first felony trial in five months. I'm a second high publicity police shooting a week later. So we hit the ground running. And you've continued to do that, but you kind of switched sides. Now you're criminal defense. I did about seven years of the prosecutors. And I was a training supervisor. The felony training supervisor loved that job. But I felt it was time for me to move on. I got a job with David Shudder, who was really one of the most prominent attorneys, trial attorneys at that time, offered me a job. And I took it. So I wanted to learn civil practice. So it wasn't very long. Over a year, I was doing largely civil cases. But then he gave me the criminal file. I was successful in doing some of the criminal cases. So that's what I got most of. And I thought, well, if I'm going to do this, I may as well open my own practice, which I did. And that's what you do now, right? Primarily white collar and criminal defense. That's correct. That's what I've been doing. And you do it all without a lot of fancy marketing and all without social media? No, I have no idea how to use social media. So even if I had it in my phone or on my desktop, I couldn't use it, because I have no idea how to use Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, any of those things. And I'm not interested. Something both of us share, by the way. Oh, really? I use almost none of that as well. You're not of my generation, so that's commendable. Don't advertise. At some point later in your career, I know you served in various different capacities within the Bar Association, but you decided to lead the Bar Association. Why would you do that now? To lead the Bar Association? I've been asked over the years, many times. And I've turned it down. I thought this is just too much of a, I'd love to do it. But my children were young, and we had tuition and mortgages and whatnot to take care of. And I thought, well, I'm coming towards the twilight of my career. So if I'm ever going to do it, I should do it now. So the nominating chairperson asked me to do it. And I said, OK, I'll do it. And then the next day, I changed my mind. I said, look. And I said, I need a little more time to think about it. And she told me, too late, your name went in. So there I am. Here I am. So yes. Yeah, all you had to do is say it once quickly. And it was over. It was over. It was done. And they probably screwed the bottom of the barrel because they called me just before the nominations are closed. Not at all. On behalf of all the rest of the bar, we're very happy to have you here. Thank you. I think you're doing a wonderful job. Love the business. We've got a huge dinner coming up here just at the end of this week. It is. There is. The Hawaii State Bar Association will have its annual fundraising dinner. It's all for a good cause. Together with the Hawaii State Bar Foundation. And we are featuring Jake Shimabukuro, who will be playing together with some of our judges who are talented in playing musical instruments now. And I and some other people will do a mix of attempts at singing along as well. All right. Are you enjoying leading the bar? I love this. I love what I'm doing. I was going to say job. But it's not really a job. It's a labor of love. The only problem is that being a sole practitioner once again, it makes it difficult for me to take care of the practice at the level I'd like to. So I've cut way back. And I'll be reinstating cases after this year at the end of the year. But I still take on cases as long. And I have some very good people helping me. So it's been a great ride. Well, Howard, you have so many accolades to your name and your career at such at this point. I'm not even going to try and name all of them. But let me give you just a minute to, if you have a message that you want to tell everybody about what you've accomplished or about life, about serving the bar, serving in this profession. Greg, I wish I'd thought about that earlier. So I may, five minutes after we go off the air, think, I should have said this. But what I'll say is, I think it's not that you had hardships that other people have had. I've had some physical hardships. But I had wonderful parents, great friends, great teachers. It was all my fault where I failed in my life. And one thing I would say for those young people who feel like they've reached a dead end and what's the use, I say, no, don't do that. You can always pick yourself up and succeed at whatever might be your life's passion. I did reach out to my high school and inform one of the individuals there that I'd be happy to talk to, not just the school, but primarily those troubled students. Because I think I can communicate with them and what I have to say will resonate with them. I still have the invitation open. But thanks very much. Well, unfortunately, that brings us to the end of our show. We've enjoyed having you with us as we discussed an incredible journey, overcoming the odds on the road to success with our special guest, HSBA president, Howard Luke. For those of you who struggle to keep up, to make the grade, to deal with what can seem to be insurmountable odds stacked against you, Howard's story of life is a testament to the old adage that hard work and perseverance pay off. His inspiring example is both humbling and motivating, and I feel honored to have been able to have him on the show, but also to call him my friend. If you want to see this show again, go to thinktechhoi.com or youtube.com, backslash, thinktechhoi. There you'll find the elite to this show and many more just like it. As always, thanks so much to our studio staff and all of you who watch, care, and contribute to ThinkTech Productions. My name is Craig Wagner, and I appreciate you watching and look forward to seeing you again. Mahalo and all.