 This is Beyond the Lines and I'm Rusty Kamori. We are live on Mondays from the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, which is about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, achieving greater success and sustaining that greater success and finding greatness. Today's guest is Super Attorney Rick Freed. He is a founding partner of the hugely successful law firm Cronin Freed-Sikia Kekina and Fairbanks. Rick has represented his clients in very high profile cases year after year, winning over 50 verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million per case. Today we are going beyond the courtroom. Rick, thank you for joining me on Beyond the Lines today. Rusty, I'm honored that someone of your stature would have me here today. You're too kind. I've known you for over half my life. I hold you in such high esteem. I have great respect for you, but I want to go back to the beginning. Can you tell me about your early years, where you grew up at? Sure. Born in New York City, I lived in Connecticut near the city until I was seven. My sister developed asthma a couple years younger. We moved to Phoenix to dry her out and it worked. And I grew up in the Phoenix area, attended high school there and college and law school at the University of Arizona. I was a captain of the tennis team and was accepted to go to Stanford, but I clerked at a firm in Phoenix, still maybe the largest firm. And they said, if you're staying here, stay in Arizona, learn the Arizona law. And then I ended up living in Hawaii, but that was the reason I stayed there. And it was after law school when I got drafted. And I'd roomed with Senator Barry Goldwater's son, who was a general in the Arizona Guard. And when I got drafted, he made it possible for me to choose going to navigator school or pilot school. I chose navigator. It was shorter. Got back to Phoenix to do my short sprint in the air guard. And it was June and 112 every day. And they said, if you want, you can do your active duty at Hickam. So it turned out that I ended up flying here, a slow cargo plane. And my first trip was during the Vietnam War to Da Nang. My first trip on my own, and it's about 30 miles south of the demilitarized zone. So I was getting a fix every three minutes. And I found the place and did my active duty and then had no intention of living in Hawaii. But my father had gone to do a year at the Sorbonne in Paris from where he went to college at Brown and met a fellow that was a German consulate. And he told him to invite me to a party where I met now judge, Alan Kay, who was at the maybe oldest law firm in the state at that time. So he said, if you aren't committed, come talk to us. So I did. And they offered me a job at 800 a month. And I was going to be paid 600 in Phoenix. OK. Well, I'll try it for a short time. And that was in 1967. Then I went on to practice. And after I became a partner there, four of us left to do just litigation. Which is what it turned out, the four of us were best at. And then I remained in the reserve and became the liaison officer commander for the Air Force Academy where I'd counsel kids. And so would go to the academy. And as I kid people, my retirement pay just about pays for my air conditioning. It was a wonderful experience. The kids were bright, patriotic, fit. Just good all around kids. I never knew about your experiences being in the military and having your pilot's license. I had no idea. That's amazing to me. After I was a navigator, I did get my pilot's license, but just privately. Yeah. Now let's talk about tennis. I know you through tennis. And people outside of the tennis community, they don't know that you have been ranked number one in the state of Hawaii in your age group all your life. I know that. I've played against you in your practice matches and you're tough. But you're also one of the top ranked players in your age group in the United States. When did you start playing tennis? I started about 10 and I kid people that I peeped 12. And I remember the first day I was shown an overhead. I whiffed it, landed on the net and broke the netcourt, but things got better after that. So I was played through college, I was captain of our team. We were third and fourth in the country. And yet playing SC and UCLA, we would lose every match 9-0, but we could beat everyone else. I was playing guys like tennis players will know this, Rafael Osuna, Stan Smith, Dennis Ralston, Arthur Ashe. I became a friend of because he got injured here and I represented him. But I knew that I wasn't going to make a living doing that. I was somewhat competitive, but not at their level. Well, you're definitely more than somewhat competitive. Well, not with those guys. And then when I came here, I continued to play and was one in the state and continued on. Wow. What do you like about tennis? What is it about it that you love so much? I kind of don't know how I got so into it because my father said you should be a gentleman and not concentrate on one sport. So I think I enjoy the physical aspect and the competitiveness. I think it goes hand in hand with my law practice and fairness. An example is if a client comes in and says, boy, if I say this, it's going to hurt my case. And I say too bad, then we don't have a case. And so same way in tennis, you've got a reputation. This is a small place. And I think if you ask most people, they'll say that I'm pretty honest out there on the court. I'd rather lose a match than have someone think I gave them a bad call. You can learn a lot about somebody in short order of playing tennis with them, their whole ethics, actually. Yes. Well, I agree. I've played against you. I've been on the other side of the net. You're extremely tough, very fair, very honest. Did I say very tough? You're a great player. Now, what's been your greatest accomplishment on the tennis court? Well, I'm thinking about it today. My leg is up because last week I severed my Achilles and I was supposed to play a match for the U.S. against the French if they could find someone old enough in Normandy next month. And obviously, I won't even be walking next month. But I think I've enjoyed, one of the highlights has to be winning the Kailua night doubles four times. Sure. The four times I got to the finals with three different partners. That's amazing. And it's been really enjoyable playing for these various cup teams for the U.S. We've played in South Africa, in India, in Australia, and just a quick, funny story. I played a grass match against an Aussie and was going to shower and yelled out, does anyone have a towel? And someone said, hang on, mate, I'll bring you a towel and a fellow in the next age group up brought me my towel. And it was Ken Roseau. Wow. The legend. The legend. So, and that's been very enjoyable because these are all people that were probably better than me when they were at my age in their 20s. But it's fun. Age brings us kind of closer together. And the camaraderie of meeting these people, we played in Mexico City. There were 16 teams a few years ago on clay at 7,000 feet. That was an experience. Totally. Yeah. Well, you're definitely an inspiration to me in tennis and countless others in the tennis community. I know that for sure. You and your wife, Susie, you both are amazing together. Can you tell me more about your relationship with her? I think we think the same in a lot of things. We enjoy traveling to interesting places. We kind of eat the same. I don't think I've had a piece of meat in 30 years. She had restaurants and we eat grains and veggies at home. I kiddingly call her the food police. We'll go on a trip with great food while it was wait because she's watching me. But I'm pretty conscientious about it. But we both are into fitness. We still ski a lot and hike. We were just in Sri Lanka for a friend's wedding and came back and thank goodness I didn't sever my calories while I was there. It would have been quite different than here. But also, she's quite a bit brighter than I am. She went to Punahou and then a very good East Coast school. So whenever I write a paper that I'm concerned is absolutely correct. I'll send it to her to proofread. So she was an English lit major. So the only thing we've ever argued about is she thinks that maybe in the low 170s I'm grossly obese. Well, she's definitely the Iron Woman. I mean, she is very fit. Well, for her age it's remarkable. I think for any age. Crossfit five days a week still. By far the oldest one there. Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's shift to law. You are the super attorney. You are incredible as an attorney. And clients that are able to get you, I mean, I'm sure they feel very lucky and fortunate. What is your secret, Rick, to winning so many cases? One of the secrets is pretty obvious, is don't take losing cases. We probably turned down well over 90% of the cases. We do a lot of our cases are purely personal injury cases. And we do an awful lot of work in medical negligence cases. And we have a number of people full time on staff that have medical backgrounds that help us evaluate. And we just want to know the truth on a case. I don't want someone that's going to help me. I want to know whether we should go ahead. Because when we get into a case, we probably over prepare. I'll know every word from a deposition and have it outlined. So it isn't that I'm particularly bright, but we are very thorough and very dedicated because we have lots of cases, but for our client, it's their only case. And it's usually something catastrophic that's happened. And so if we let them down, that changes their whole life. Because at least if we can help them financially after they've been paralyzed or something else, just horrific has happened, that makes their life a little bit easier. Yeah, you definitely do all the high profile cases. And I mean, I see you on the TV, on news all the time, but what types of law do you specialize in? Well, as I said, it's just a personal injury case. But I've also had a focus on aviation cases. I've probably had at least 30 various aviation cases, a lot of helicopter cases where maybe people have gotten on these tours a little close to the edge of a mountain. And with our weather, it's all our graphic. What's clear one minute, literally 60 seconds later is encompassed in clouds. So I've tried some pretty high profile cases actually on the main one, where a door blew off the United Flight and sucked a whole row of business class into the air. Yeah, I remember that. I was lead on that. And then a case where Raytheon Missile during an air show went awry and killed six of our own people. Because interestingly, when the pilot was to shoot at a flare, which was part of the air show just off the Philippines, it gave him an oral no, which meant he was locked on to the target. So we thought. But if you were locked on to the target or all the way off the gimbal limits, you got the same oral no. So as a result, Raytheon redesigned their missile. We got a nice judgment and very quickly, when I was picking the jury, there was a guy from a competing company, Northrop Grumman, who seemed to be tracking with the case. But I knew it would be, in federal court, an unanimous jury is required, a one-person jury. And I let him go. And as he walked by me, he said, I hope you get those bastards. I was sick. It turned out we won the case anyway. I made it harder on myself. You have such interesting cases, and you've represented so many of them to really give them justice. Rick, we're going to take a quick break. And then when we come back, we want to go in depth more, again, beyond the courtroom. You are watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my guest, Rick Freed. We will be back in a quick 60 seconds. Hey, Stan the Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii. And they won't let me do political commentary, so I'm stuck doing energy stuff. But I really like energy stuff, so I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan the Energy Man at lunchtime, at noon, on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan the Energy Man. Aloha. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and Me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon, on Mondays, every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. My guest today is Super Attorney Rick Freed, a founding partner of the hugely successful law firm of Cronin, Freed, Sakia, Kekena, and Fairbanks. And today, we are going beyond the courtroom. Rick, have you read my book Beyond the Lines? I frankly get opportunities to read lots of books. OK. And I love to read, but with my practice, I'll read maybe 10 minutes at night and then I'm asleep for fun. But I've known you so long and been so impressed with your success, you know, 22 straight titles, the national record up at Punahou that I figured, you know, if Rusty wrote it, I should at least read it, and I thought I'd be doing you a favor. But even as old as I am, as I was sharing with my wife Susie, I learned a lot from that book. And hopefully, maybe that had something to do with our really big verdict earlier this year. I'm glad to help in any way. Right. Right. But we'll keep the fee. Awesome. It was really well thought out, and interestingly, being a tennis player, I knew a number of the boys that you, oh, the people you wrote about. Exactly. And members of your team, and what made the good ones really good, and others that could have been good, not quite the same, but very motivational. I was quite impressed. Oh, thank you. I feel so grateful and feel honored that you read the book. No, it was a real pleasure. I want to ask you, Rick, how do you define success? You know, I guess I'd have to, even though, you know, I've been chair of the tourism authority down a lot of tennis and been involved in other things, the governor's put me on his climate commission, which I'm a great believer with global warming is a major problem. I've got to be focused on law. And I think even as I'm getting older, and my partner's kidding me about when I'm leaving, but hopefully it's only kidding, it really makes you feel good when you can help somebody that really otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity. Actually just this morning, before I came over, I read a letter from a referring lawyer whose client had been discouraged from going ahead with a case. And we just resolved it within the last month or two. And he said he knew if there was a way it could be won, we would do it. So that makes me feel good. And this client actually now lives in Germany is very, very pleased. And so I still get Christmas cards from clients I've represented decades ago. And another thing about I think defining success is having good friends, people that you can relate to, and a happy marriage. And I think I have both of those. Yes, you do. Now why are you successful? You mentioned earlier about over-preparing and being super-prepared. Is there any other insights that you can share about why you are successful? I think it's important because most lawyers don't enjoy actually going to the court room and trying cases. For me and my partners who try these cases, that's the part that we enjoy. And when the defense lawyers, and there's really only three or four that are typically used, and these are good lawyers, realize that we're willing to try the cases, then cases and to resolve. And I think by now they realize we are not going in unprepared. We hire the best experts. I love it when my expert is for the first time coming out on the side of a plaintiff has done all defense work previously. So we try to be very honest. And as I said, it's preparation and the willingness to go to the mat if we need to. Another thing is because of our success. These are all contingent cases, and we advance all the costs. And now ethically, we do not have to try to get them back from the client. But in any major case, we're going out of pocket over $100,000, and it goes up from there. So we have to have a high threshold of confidence. And you don't want to put a client through this whole process of interrogatories and depositions and trial, relive it all and then lose. It's tough. I have a few attorney friends of mine that told me that they've watched you in the courtroom, and they refer to you as the maestro or the master. They said it is so impressive to watch you do what you do in the courtroom. Oh, that's very kind. But a lot of it is you can sort of pick up when the defense goes off the tracks because you've prepared for it. And so it's not a big surprise for you. But there are times when certainly I've not done so well with this, too. What's been your greatest obstacle, would you say, in achieving your success? And how did you overcome it? Well, I think maybe it's way back when it's trying to figure out what area of the law I was comfortable with. It became apparent I was not going to be a great briefwriter, though obviously you have to be able to write to some extent. I wasn't going to do wills and trusts, but I seemed to be able to communicate with people. And I think it's important to be empathetic, and clients can relate to that. Because as best you can, you try to put yourself in their shoes. You can't, of course. What I'm going through is trivial, because I'm representing the family of that poor girl that just got hit by the lava bomb, and she's going to have a tough recovery. But it's important that the clients recognize that you are empathetic. I give all my clients my cell phone, my home number, and have them call me at weekends. I mean, we are easy to reach, and I think clients appreciate that. And periodically on weekends, I'll just call and find out how they're doing. Well, you definitely have empathy for everyone you come into contact with. That's absolutely fantastic. I want to ask you, Rick, what do you aspire to achieve in your future still? Well, I think, hopefully, more of the same. I'm going to be at it for a while, I hope. And hopefully, it's such a great feeling when you've been able to help somebody who really couldn't get help otherwise, that had some really horrible thing happen to them through no fault of their own, and they can't get assistance. And we are sometimes their knight, the person that can speak for them when they're unable. Exactly. Now, Rick, you've done incredible things to help our community in, for all these decades, actually. And recently, you did a gift to the University of Hawaii Law School and the University of Arizona Law School. But can you share more about what compelled you to help UH law, for example? I think they've done a wonderful job with training, particularly people that have grown up here. And it's totally different. I can go and try a case on the mainland. It's very hard for people to come in here and a lawyer from the mainland and feel comfortable. And I think the dean of the law school is a real gem, Avi Soyfer, and I have the greatest respect for what Avi's done in making it so different than when I went to law school. When I went to law school, I would have needed directions to find the courtroom when I graduated. Now they can go right in. They're almost trying cases while they're in law school. And so it's a big focus, and several of us have contributed in a large way to a trial advocacy program up there, which I think is wonderful for these new lawyers to be able to go in and try a case. When I started, I was not going to be very good trying cases for a number of years because we didn't have that training. It was a Socratic method. You knew how to write a brief. No practical experience. And so this law school, and because I went to Arizona and I've gone back there and taught, I feel an affinity there as well. Though this is where my love is. Sure, sure. Now, so you definitely see that what's happening at UH Law, it's really creating more quality attorneys versus just quantity. Exactly. Classes, they aren't trying to make it enormous. But the attorneys that we've hired and we used to clerk are very impressive. They are doing a better and better job every year. You touched on this earlier about how you are the chairman of the Board of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. And since you've been chairman, there's been amazing growth in tourism in Hawaii. Can you share more about that? I'm not sure how much I had to do it, but it's been an interesting experience. We've tried to focus more, not just on bringing the tourists in, but the quality of the tourists and the quality of the experience when we get there. We have some young people that are focusing on really what makes us special than other islands that have warm weather and nice beaches. And focus on our very unique culture with the various Hawaiian events that we sponsor. There are actually several hundred that we get involved in. And we are putting a major part of our funding that comes through the state so that when people come here, they get a unique experience that's different than going to Mexico or the Caribbean. Plus, I think we're known as being a place that's safe. We obviously have some issues with our homelessness, which I think is starting to turn around. That's something we discuss at every meeting. And I've been able to, I think, focus in some other areas, including sports. We've been focusing more on that because when in the middle of winter, people see an event from Hawaii and they're sitting in Buffalo in Sub-Zero, they're going to maybe think about come visit us. Yeah, no, that's great. Recently, there was a court case with you representing Mrs. Campano and her family versus Tripler Hospital. And you won the case $24.7 million. Can you share a little bit about that? It was an interesting case in that you never know what's going to happen. And we've had a lot of Tripler cases and some other eight-figure verdicts. Yeah. But we had this case settled for $10 million. And the new administration is fairly hostile to victims' rights. And it went to the U.S. attorney, which has always been a rubber stamp after it gets approved at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and someone in session's office or he himself nixed the settlement. And we always thought that the case was worth more than that. But the clients were happy, which is the important thing. And $10 million is going to go a long way to helping Mrs. Campano, who lost her kidneys and will be on dialysis and transplants the rest of her life due to a clear foul up at Tripler. But they nixed it and we went in front of a very fair, I'd say conservative judge, Judge Chang, Kevin Chang. And that's what he awarded. Wow. They have appealed it. There's going to be a conference in the next week or so to see about possible resolution. But we feel very comfortable that there's actually no error. Wow. That's great. Rick, I really appreciate you being on the show today. It's incredible for me to know you for all these years and for you to be doing all that you do for the people in Hawaii. I mean, it's just amazing. And really appreciate everything that you do. Your interview made it very easy. Thank you so much. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rusty Komori, encouraging you to constantly strive for a superior culture of excellence every day and find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.