 If you were guessing that this is a two o'clock block, you'd be right. You're on life in the law. I'm going to talk about legal things today. But let me just make a statement first. And that is, this is about leadership. And leadership, you know, in this administration, it has revealed itself. Leadership is more important than it ever was in a multifaceted, multi-complex, highly specialized society where people can get divided so easily. Leadership is critically important. And we have to build leaders, not only for state government and state process and state industry. We have to build leaders for the whole country, in fact, for the world. And that's what Pat Mao is doing these days. She's building leaders, you know? You know why? Because it's the Bar Association. HSBA, White State Bar Association. She's the executive director. Welcome to the show, Pat. Thanks, Jay. Thanks for building leaders. Not only leaders, ethical leaders. Okay. Good. That's very important. It is. Yeah. It is. And Keisha King, my co-host. And we're going to explore with Pat how this is done here in Hawai'i Nei with the Bar Association in a program that's, what, ten years old now, Pat? We're going into our eleventh year. Eleventh year. Eleventh year. So this program has been in effect and running before I joined the Bar Association. And it's a, it was a product of a group of engaged HSBA members, Bar members. And they were in a strategic planning group. And this was one of the things that they said they wanted to establish. A leadership institute for aspiring young attorneys who have demonstrated some sort of interest in leadership in the Bar and or in the community and who show great promise for in the Bar and the greater community. Why is the Bar interested in such a thing? Well, as Bar members, we take oath of office and we not only say we're going to practice the law ethically, but we also have community service aspirations too. I think its unwritten rule and Chief Justice Rectonwall has always promoted this. While we don't have a mandatory pro bono, mandatory volunteerism. We promote it from within because we feel we have skills that we can lend itself to our basic lives, not only in the practice of law. So a lot of times our attorneys are called upon to do a lot of things in the community. And so we're trying to cultivate leaders, people who will do it the right way, people who are not worried about thinking out of the box. And definitely people who are forming the core of the HSBA and they have the core values of the profession at heart. So this is how we promote the longevity of our profession. What I heard you say, and I'd like to explore it for a minute anyway, in terms of one of the fundamentals of this program, is leadership includes community service. It includes volunteer community service. Is that what you're saying? Yes it does. After the fellows complete their year as fellows, they submit a program or project outline to me. And for the following year they go out into the community or within the bar and they do something that's not related to their day to day job. And it expands. And I tell them to do something they're passionate with, something that they're not used to doing when they're sitting at their desk. And we did something with Think Tank a couple of years ago, which really expanded the outside borders of their thinking with the three digit project that you headed. Well this is the triple digit program. That's right. Let me take a moment and explain that. Everybody gets a bar number. And back in the day the bar numbers were less than a thousand. And if you had a bar number that was less than a thousand, it would be triple digit. And we had this program, we'd be trying to talk to all these old guys and girls who had numbers of less than a thousand. And it was really interesting. We made a movie of that. We played it at your annual bar program. So I guess you're wondering, Keisha, how this program sort of got started because this is a program that's complex. You have to keep on interesting people. And they may not be completely interested. Lawyers are driven, lawyers are always driven, either to make money or to advance their careers. There's not all that much volunteerism and you have to encourage it. And the Bar Association has a role in all that. So I guess the question, I'm only suggesting a question here, is how did you formulate all the parts of this program? How did it come to you, Pat? She's going to ask you this in a minute. Yeah, what he said. How did you formulate this program? Actually, the template was in place when I joined the Bar Association about eight years ago because my predecessor had started it. So what it is, the template is, we have a core coordinating group headed by Judge Ricky Meilmano who's been hanching it since the very start. She was at the very beginning of it. At the very beginning. She was the moderator at the Strategic Planning Committee. And she calls the group together. We have a group of people who have regularly participate lawyers who want to do programs and get the panels and they volunteer for this. We get together in January. We plan the year's programs out. Everybody gets their assignment and we promote the program. And then we accept applications and this group helps us tear down the 30 to 40 applications we get to about 15 people who will join the Leadership Institute in May. And the programs are monthly May through December. And they spend half a day with us at the Bar Association. Or when Mayor Caldwell has with the people, he takes them on walking excursions. Oh, cool. So there's always a surprise with Mayor Caldwell because with him, we always tell people, you're not going to know two or three days before, but make sure you wear walking shoes and you wear comfortable clothes because he's taken us down to Chinatown to visit the homeless shelter. He's taken us to the police department when they had the controversy over some of the police officers getting on tape, getting into trouble. And we've gone to Cacaaco to talk to the Howard Hughes people and Earth Justice and get a whole panel. So that's outside. We go outside into the community. And same like when we have the pro bono month, that's October. We take the fellows to different legal service providers around town. So access to justice room in the district court, legal aid, volunteer legal services, ACLU, and they'll visit all these places and they'll actually meet the staffs and ask them what do you do? Is there a place for me to do my project? So there is a different theme for each month is what you're saying. Exactly. Different program. Exactly. Okay, that's terrific for each person, but it kind of baffles me. You would think that you would get this type of training while they're in school. Why must they continue this after? When you go to law school, they don't teach you how to be business people. They don't teach you how to be leaders. They don't teach you the rules of the profession like the rules of civility, the rules of pro bono work. In law school, it's very esoteric. It's very driven towards textbooks and driven towards passing the bar exam. Oh, wow. So these are things that you don't learn in law school and like I said, being a business person, they don't really teach you how to be a business person. So some of our attorneys, we have continuing legal education, accounting 101. How do you read an asset? They need to know that. They need to know that because they're managing people's money. They're managing a business and some people don't come equipped with that. So they don't teach you everything in law school. That's true. Yeah. Especially with, there are so many books now with regard to law, but leadership especially. I'm thinking about Stephen Covey and so many others like him. How is it that they're not able to study that and do you all study any of those great leadership authors? We leave the programming to the people who are coordinating the program seminars. So a lot of it, when we do have like say for example, former attorney general David Louis who's now a partner in a law firm, he has done extensive research on leadership. So he brings out and all these esoteric things and philosophies, but we want to bring to the fellows the real aspects of it. What does it take to be a leader? How do these people develop their style? What drives them? What keeps them into the path they're on? So it's more talking about personal development from an attorney's perspective and all our speakers are attorneys because we have a kinship. We all stress getting into law school. We all stress getting through law school. We all stress taking the bar exam. We all had these milestones that other professions may not totally understand what we've gone through. So all of it is local attorneys and pretty much they're in all different aspects. All different walks of life. There are secondary aspects that is true. One of the big bar association values is civility because when you're practicing law you want to win for your client and the organic natural expression of that is you fight. And some lawyers don't learn about civility. If you're going to fight you still have to be civil. So the bar wants people to be civil. The judges want people to be civil. And when you're in a program like this you learn how to rub elbows. You learn how to appreciate your fellows your fellow lawyers in the practice. I think it's an important lesson. Never spoken but it's an important lesson. It is because I think here in Hawaii we're unique because we're so small and even though we're separated by islands a coconut wireless in the legal profession is strong. So we always tell the young leaders I mean when I have the guy I'm in charge of the professionalism course from the Supreme Court. We always tell people be careful what you do the person you crossed today or the person asked you for an extension and for no good reason you just don't want to do it you don't want to play ball. It's going to get back to you. So this is part of the bar's mission with the leadership institute sections committees other projects face-to-face because if I know you by face I'm more likely to listen to you more carefully and not just brush you off. Yeah and you call me for an extension of time for something I'll give it to you but if you deny me an extension of time just because you're being spiteful I'll never give you an extension of time and so you have a degradation of the relationship that way. And he'll probably tell five other attorneys so-and-so didn't give me extension of time for no good reason other than he didn't like the way I look so if he asks you for something double think it that's how it works. But your program doesn't end that entirely it just teaches them the alternative that you don't have to be that way. Yeah because we're in the warrior mode men and women but then our program is good because we take people from all practices of law prosecuting attorneys obliquely frienders small firms I have our insurance claims adjuster last year I had a probation's officer from the federal court we have people from the neighbor islands because the neighbor islanders feel that they're isolated they want to know people what's happening and Honolulu and we want to tell them HSBA doesn't stand for Honolulu State Bar Association so it's different perspectives civil practitioners, criminal family so they all come together and we talk about leadership but you know the first segment we had was with Marjorie Bronster and when she was speaking about her experience as the attorney general during the broken trust and during the time she was going to court nobody moved the bodies were just mesmerized and one of the things if I may say she said the day she had to walk from her office to the Supreme Court to argue one of the bishop estate motions there was a whole line of people in red shirts and they were bussed in and they had the shirts down with Bronster stay away from commanding school and she said you know even small children she was walking through the group and she said well she was there with her staff and they said okay great face we're going to walk across the street but it seemed like I was going to walk a mile but as she was walking under their breath would go you go girl you like what you're doing and she said she never expected that so it's those type of stories from their perspectives at leaders that it brings to the fellow something that they've never seen that they'll never hear you wouldn't hear about it you wouldn't read about it but when she said people in that group were muttering under her breath their breath to her showing her support that really shook her more than facing the big crowd after that and in this group in these sessions they let their hair down it's really and I think we encourage them to do that we want to know how they feel their experience so that the you know the panelists the elder lawyers senior lawyers who are talking to the junior lawyers we want the junior lawyers to appreciate we want them to hear those stories and learn things they would not otherwise learn but right now we can take a short break okay we'll be right back in one minute that's Patty Pat now we go back a long way okay Kisha King we're talking about the leadership institute the Bar Association we'll be right back Aloha I'm Warren Pear a host here at Think Tech, Hawaii a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii we provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii we are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going we'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now thanks so much Aloha I'm Jane Sugimura a host here at Think Tech, Hawaii a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii we provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii we are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going we'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now thank you so much I told you we would return and we have returned Pat Mao and Keisha King talking about the Bar Association's Leadership Program you had something you wanted to ask Keisha I did this program sounds really amazing I would love to know how the junior attorneys are changed after this the fellows come in very tentatively and the first two sessions they're really quiet and then we give them a lot of breaks so they can get to know each other so they can talk to each other get to know each other and they're more willing to share their own experiences what they want to accomplish what in their background leads them and makes them tick and so they come in tentative and then as they get more and more and we prep them and we say you know we can advance these are the people who are going to speak please Google them these are their bios they come in and they start getting more confidence and by the end of this session it's like free flow you can't quiet them down and at the end when we do the wrap up Judge Amano does the wrap up and we talk about how it changed them how it changed their perspective and some of them have revealed that it changes their personal life too that's really good that's interesting yeah cause we have we've caught a lot of people who came in before there was somebody and the alumni it reads I mean I'm really proud that these people were leadership institute fellows before they've assumed their positions now we have Judge Jelotaki federal judge Judge Darian Ching-Nagata state district court judge we have people who are corporate officers we have people who are now named partners in their law firms so we have a broad spectrum and just so happened we're going to have the HSBA board elections the two people running for vice president which is a succession to become HSBA vice president both of them were leadership institute fellows and we have two or three fellows who are on the HSBA board couple of people who run the sections and they're all over the place it's like a secret society so one of my fellows said we should develop a secret handshake oh goodness well there is something like you know they know each other they stay together they're like graduates of a given school that were tight while they were at school and they know each other going forward and this is a valuable thing to have but there's something else too though it seems to me that being able to talk to a judge is not something that comes easy if you don't know the judge sometimes you know him maybe he's your cousin's uncle's neighbor but mostly he's not you don't know him and you appear in court in front of him and your relationship is across the bench it's not a matter of being friendly it's not a matter of knowing him personally now he comes in and he talks to you and he tells you his personal thoughts and you can ask him personal questions and he can so this is really valuable the same thing you know most lawyers of practice you know they start as associates and firms they're at the bottom of the heap they work on the cases they were assigned they were in a little silo they go out and drink with other associates maybe but they don't have a lot of exposure to the partners they don't have a lot of exposure to the families of the partners they don't know what the partner's career has been like and now he's a partner in a big firm a guy who's been a bastion of the Bar Association who's telling him his personal story this is extraordinary you know and it's only too bad you can't accept everybody Pat the coordinating committee likes it small so it gives everybody a chance to ask questions and speaking about interaction with judges one of the most popular programs is in September Judge Omano coordinates that that's speed dating with the judges that's the day first we go to federal court and then we talk with the judges in federal court and we look at their quarters we look at their chamber and we have lunch at the cafeteria then we walk over to the state court and in the Supreme Court the first floor they set up like 15, 16 desks and chairs and the fellows spend 5 to 8 minutes with each judge so we have Chief Justice Rectiwal every year he has to be on that panel every year Sabrina McKenna has to be on that panel every year we have certain judges and Judge Omano says she has a wait list because if she doesn't call somebody that year I'll come, did I get bad reviews we have judges who want to so from the state court level from the Supreme Court all the way down to district court they don't get a chance to speak to these people either on a one-on-one because if you're a transactional lawyer you don't go to court you don't even know what these people look like and to be able to meet the Chief Justice or even a district court judge and they're asking you what makes you tick it's mind-boggling to them and they go wow I saw a judge so and so on the street and he remembered me and I went yeah there's a real benefit in that it might even be a benefit that reveals itself in the ruling, who knows but I wonder about this and I haven't seen the program operate in this way but the post is the Supreme Court Justice and there's the Leadership Institute people and the question is it's an old and cold case it's not a case that's subject to decision right now it's finished final of appeal and the young lawyer says to the judge you know you ruled against the Superfery a few years ago that was really bad public policy I disagree with that case can you justify that for me now what would happen I never came across the question frame like that but I have heard some of the fellows ask the judge not in direct terms of a specific case but they give a factual situation and what was the rationale for that and the judge can't speak to it they will that's very interesting I think that's the insight that a junior attorney would definitely benefit from and those questions they are unlimited they can talk to them about anything except pending cases or anything that gives an appearance of conflict so a lot of the fellows ask the judges very personal questions what made you go into this that you have in balancing your life would you do it again or would you go back to private practice they ask a lot of questions I hear positive change that can happen have there been any attorneys that have said you know what I don't think I want to do this anymore have there been any negative changes or fallout I haven't heard of any because my best marketers are the prior fellows because I tell them the applications are out look for people you hear about this this is a good program we talk to so and so I got four names for you picked at least one or two from the names that I talked to so it's the fellows themselves that recruit and tell people about the program it's a door opener in terms of your career for sure because you're meeting people you wouldn't meet you're developing a relationship even people you would never have that opportunity but there's another part of it I find interesting it's the weighing of career options because you go to law school they don't really help you shape a career you have to do that yourself and sometimes things happen you're cast on an ocean of possibilities and you can't choose and you really need a big brother big sister person you can bounce this stuff or see your options and decide which one you want to pick because working in the at the library all your life and drafting documents all your life may not be appealing in this day of having second and third careers a lawyer really has to think about how he would how he would advance down the career path and whether he's going to be practicing in the library or doing something else and so I have noticed and I've appreciated that in this program the options are always on the table I could be a judge I could run for the legislature I could work for it in-house counsel there's a lot of things other than library working in the carols research and cases so this is an eye-opener because the truth is that when you're in that job you don't think much about what's outside that job this is an opportunity to meet people who are outside the normal silo who can give you information about alternative ways of practicing alternative ways to lead your life actually I've had heard that some of the fellows keep in touch with some of the panelists that they meet and so on a yearly basis they touch base because when you're in a large law firm you don't really talk to the managing partner about your personal life or something if you're in a crisis you're having a family situation you wouldn't because you realize your chances of going up the ladder but you have had a relationship with someone outside your office in which you can confide in and which you can ask for should I stay in the practice of law or should I start looking at and I think one of the best panelists is John Komeiji he said you know I was happy of being a litigator I love being in the courtroom but these things came my way maybe I should take a chance even after 35 years of practicing I should take a chance and go outside the box and see where it takes me and to the fellows to hear this kind wow, yeah we should because attorneys are generally we're adverse to risks very adverse to risk so then it's to teach people there's other things and if this is not your cup of tea you don't like it you can step outside and it's nothing wrong with stepping outside because we're not all traditionalists in the courtroom yeah and you get to think about things and there's a lot in my view there's a lot to think about these days it goes back to something that I've said in this program and that is inherent in our legal training is the notion that we are the guardians of the rule of law and most of us haven't thought too much about that because the system has worked pretty well it's predictable that's the nature of the rule of law it's predictable right until now until now and so if there is one group of people in the community in our horizontal vertical community in this country who are responsible really responsible protecting the rule of law who is it? it's not the butchers and bakers and candlestick makers it's the lawyers thinking about it so this program is a way maybe to inculcate or re-inculcate that thought with them and then the ethics you mentioned and the civility all these valuable things maybe you don't always learn in law school and you don't always learn in practice and somebody says to you wait let's just think for a minute about how you can serve the profession how you can serve the community because Judge Dan Foley he talks about his life as a private attorney and his pro bono experiences to have saved people in prison who've taken on cases from Micronesians taking on the same sex marriage case and all these things in private practice and he said he did it all pro bono free he didn't charge because he believed in it so to hear that kind of story from a person who walked in their shoes able to make a living able to make a real dent in a problem in society is very very inspiring yes it is we're going to leave it there Pat it's a beautiful program I envy you having the psychic benefit of being around it and developing it and creating new elements and components for it it's really been wonderful for 10 years 11 almost I understand thank you why don't you say goodbye to the people goodbye people you've been watching Life in the Law and you've been here with Ms. Pat Mal and of course J. Fidel we'll see you next time