 Welcome and Aloha. I'm Mark Shklav, the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across the sea to the mainland and then across the Rocky Mountains to Denver to talk with Hawaii lawyer Ryan Markham about his personal and professional journey. So let's get started. Aloha Ryan, how are you? Hey, you're great. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It's just an honor to be here and I'm a big fan of the show. I've loved all of the guests you've had and it's just humbling to be part of it. You've had so many impressive guests and then now me. So I'm glad to have you and I want to talk about your journey Ryan because a lot of young people in Hawaii who are just beginning their careers think about do I stay in Hawaii or do I leave Hawaii for the mainland? So let me ask you, you were raised in Hawaii, you went to law school, the University of Hawaii, then you worked for your TADS law firm here in downtown Honolulu, but why did you leave Hawaii for Colorado? It's a great question and there's actually kind of several factors for the decision. I think one throughout a lot of my life the words of Jim Scott, the former president of Honolulu School, have played in my mind and he used to always say to who much is given, much is expected and I've kind of taken that as a bit of a personal challenge. You know, I look at my father who we mentioned that I worked for and I look at the amount of opportunity he had versus the opportunities he gave me and I think the kind of the pressure, it's self-imposed really, but there's self-imposed pressure to perform and in a way do better. So as I'm sitting around, you know, working in my dad's law firm, thinking well how am I going to improve upon this or do better than this, it became, you know, looked like a taller order in task and not that there's anything wrong with becoming Greg Markham, but it looked like that was my destiny and I thought hey maybe I should try to see if I could do something else or what and I think another part of it is for good, bad or indifferent, I think a lot of local kids, we grow up kind of thinking that to really make it or feel like you're making it, making it on the mainland somehow is like a, I don't say a better thing or bigger thing because in a lot of ways it's a lot harder to make it back home, but you know, I got to a point where things were very, very comfortable in Hawaii, you know, I was working with my father with his partner, so I grew up with his kind of uncles really and, you know, I was fortunate enough to play in a band with, you know, Justice McKenna, Judge Irooka, Judge Domingo, Judge Crabtree and I got very, very comfortable in the Hawaii legal community, so I thought maybe it'd be good to kind of get out of my comfort zone and see if I could grow and make it somewhere else where I had sort of no connections and no, you know, no one really knew who I was, so I kind of wanted to take that challenge on and I've been fortunate that it's worked out well so far. So in a way it sounds like you thought a lot about this and you wanted to make sure that you could be a success on your own in some other place and because you had a lot of things going for you in Hawaii, a lot of backers and I guess that's what I'm hearing and it sounds like, well, look, let me try to see if I can make it on my own also. Yeah, definitely, you know, I think it's that, you know, wanting to just improve and get better and not that I wasn't improving, I still had so much to learn in the practice in Hawaii and you know, I thank everyone I worked with, you know, Kevin Chi, being really just a smart dude and being able to talk to him about things, Khaled Feldman, I worked really closely with Tommy a lot and then and I learned a lot about just sort of the mechanics of motions practice and litigation from Danny Kim and Keith Kato, who are both now named partners at Chi Markham and Kato and Kim, so, you know, I'm really grateful for that experience and really I think I couldn't be doing the things I'm doing without that. Okay, well, let's go to talk about the things you're doing now. You joined the firm of Cottony Attorneys and Consultants. What is that firm like and who, you know, what attracted you to Cottony Attorneys and Consultants and, you know, where are you located? What do you do? Yeah, yeah, thank you. So, you know, I feel like in my, you know, my practice in Honolulu, I feel like I had and we, our firm kind of had sort of this David and Goliath thing where we always felt like we were David, we were going up against bigger firms and we had, you know, nine, 10 attorneys but not a huge practice. And so, you know, the chance to, I don't want to say join Goliath, but join a place that had a tremendous amount of resources versus what, you know, I was used to doing a lot of things kind of on my own. You know, certain big cases I'd be in there, you know, emailing with an army against an army of paralegals and associates and, you know, partners and it's just, you know, kind of myself feel like I'm fighting in the breach on my own. So, having a lot of resources is kind of incredible. It's awesome. I mean, we, you know, to have the ability to, if we need to put just bodies on a case, you know, the paralegals, associates and partners, it's neat, you know, and it kind of, it's a good feeling to know that you're really supported and you can kind of do anything and take on any type of litigation. So, that was a big part of it. I, another thing that drew me to the firm is our CEO, Trent Hotney, I got to interview with him when I was interviewing and it ended up just being a great, great conversation. I mean, I think we only started talking shop like really late in the interview. We just started talking story and, you know, he's a really, really cool guy. I, what I was able to recognize in him right away is he's a bit of a visionary and kind of a disruptor when it comes to the legal community and the practice of law. He sees things a bit differently and kind of similar to how I do. And I had sort of these, you know, fledgling thoughts about where the practice of law should go and what we should be doing to better serve our clients and evolving. And Trent had basically articulated all of these things I was kind of feeling and thinking beautifully at me and I thought, oh, okay, this is, this seems like a cool place to be. So, yeah, we're fortunate to get an offer from them and take it and work, work here. I'm in, so I'm in the Denver office, but we have locations across the country. And I serve, I get to serve Hawaii, Colorado and Minnesota, which is awesome. Wow. Yeah. So I think Zoom, you know, Zoom sort of taught us that you can work from anywhere. And I've been fortunate enough to retain quite a few of my Hawaii clients and I can appear, you know, in court for them, you know, arbitrations and stuff so far. It's been pretty somewhat seamless to do it via Zoom. I think as we transition, hopefully, if we can, into more in-person stuff, then the plan is to be coming back and forth a lot more, which, you know, I would love to do because obviously Hawaii is always going to be home and love seeing everyone and being there. So it's kind of mean I have an opportunity to practice in a lot of different jurisdictions. So you actually have, you know, retained your connections professionally with Hawaii and your license in Hawaii obviously and your license in Colorado and also in Minnesota, is that right? Yeah, Minnesota too, yeah. All right. So you can represent across the nation and because of, I mean, and actually in a way because of the COVID situation, you're able to do it really better than previously. It sounds like. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I, you know, I didn't think I could at first. I, you know, I think the one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that we realize, wait a second, we can do this. We can work from anywhere. And, you know, I actually, not even just the three jurisdictions, I am licensed in a lot of contractual, you know, a lot of construction contracts have arbitration provisions. And in a lot of jurisdictions, you're allowed to arbitrate there without being licensed. So I've found myself practicing in all kinds of places. It's been nice and cool. Okay. And so you mentioned construction law. That's your focus. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So I started my dad obviously does a lot of insurance defense work, a lot of personal injury defense. And I had started initially doing that with him. And I think that's a really good, you know, the insurance defense stuff, personal injury defense, he really does teach you how to litigate. You take a lot of depositions, there's a lot of motions, practice and stuff. And I was fortunate, I got to have the experience to, you know, handle a lot of those types of cases and, you know, kind of take the lead on some of the more insignificant ones. Not that there's an insignificant case, but, you know, some of the soft tissue rear enders and stuff, I got to sort of cut my teeth on, so to speak. And then Kalle Feldman and Danny Kim from the firm, you know, had mostly a construction practice. And as that work picked up, you know, from 2015 and on, or maybe even before that, I was fortunate enough to be able to work closely with them in the construction litigation group of the firm. So you drew a lot from your Hawaii background into your present location with Cottney. And is Cottney made mostly construction law, that type of thing? Yeah, so the firm used to be called Cottney Construction Law. Actually, when I joined, that's what it was called. You know, the firm has done a good job of being able to serve sort of everything that construction companies would need, right? So we'd have these clients that needed help with employment law issues, tax, business stuff. So we got, you know, we have kind of vast practice areas now. We have groups that can handle sort of everything a construction company would run into, including immigration and, you know, business structuring and tax and all that stuff that's all over my head. It's much smarter people than I am, but so it's neat. It's neat to be able to, you know, be a one-stop shop for all of our clients. And I noticed that there's a, you know, Cottney has a lot of offices around the world. And so it's construction law and international legal topic. Is that my correct in that? Yeah, I think, you know, obviously it varies from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But I mean, since, you know, since the advent of tools really, man's been building stuff and meeting to get disputes with building and building things or even just setting up projects and stuff together. So yeah, we've been, we're able to serve a lot of different countries. I don't have too much exposure to that, but I was fortunate enough to be looped in on some things. We have Barcelona or Spain presence and there's a large Spanish company that wants to do a big project in Texas and maybe Southern Colorado. So I was, you know, got to be looped in on that because I'd be helping with Colorado stuff. And so it's just kind of neat to see, you know, I'm not fully involved with just tangentially garing all the neat things happening with the firm across the world. And in addition to the legal side, we have a consulting arm, Cotney consultants, and we have a lobbying, Cotney lobbying, and we're able to sort of leverage both of those for information. I find our lobbying group to be very helpful. As part of my practice, I do OSHA defense work and, you know, figuring out where the Biden administration's going with regard to OSHA and then obviously our employment law groups wanting to know what they're going to be doing with a lot of employment issues. So having that lobbying arm that's, you know, in DC and give us all the information is really helpful. I got to be on a call recently with Senator Roger Marshall from Kansas who gave us some great insights and so it's neat to have access to that, you know. Well, what, you know, is the major issue facing the construction law field caused by the COVID pandemic nowadays? What does that look like? Well, you know, the huge thing we're dealing with and it looks like we'll be dealing with for a while is just material, shortage of material pricing. It's, you know, I hear it's going to get better, but, you know, with most things, the prices of stuff, it's quickly to rise and very slow to fall. But with COVID, I mean, we are from put together a kind of a list of things that contributed to our current material shortage and material price increase issues and pretty much all of it sort of this force, measure, you know, type stuff. Right. Yeah, sure. Fires and floods and, you know, COVID and, you know, you name it. So, you know, in that regard, the legal battles we're seeing is, hey, we're having to, if there isn't a material price or material shortage provision in the contract already, which, you know, all of the new contracts we have a client center have some language addressing that. But if the project was ongoing when the pandemic hit and this issue happened, we're having to lean into these force, measure, causes and provisions. And, you know, it's hard for everyone because the owners, the developers, you know, they had their, their proformas and they were going to pay this much for their structure or whatever they were getting. And now the price has increased tremendously, the delays caused by not having material available, you know, now on the contractor side, you know, in some cases having to eat some of the material costs or if they're used to making good margins on the materials, not being able to do that. So it's really impacting business and, you know, hopefully it can calm down. Yeah. And I guess, I mean, that opens up the really, I mean, it was always, force measure was always in the law, but I can see now with COVID it's, it's much, much greater, much bigger. Now, I want to, I want to go back. You mentioned that you were in a band in Hawaii with a bunch of judges and various other people. And, and I, you know, I, I under, I believe you're still connected with music, but what, and that connects you with Hawaii. So what's that about? Yeah, you know, I, so I, I, in college, I did a lot of, so I played football in college here in Colorado. And, and I also did a lot of music stuff. I was in the acapella group, but although it's hard to tell now, I did a lot of musicals and choral work and stuff. I hadn't had a band. So music's always been a big part of my life when, you know, I think when law school hit and I started kind of working, I got away from that. And within maybe the last three years, I think three years ago, was real fortunate. Rhonda Griswald, Irene Anzai, Gail Cosgrove, they do the Hawaii Woman Lawyers musical every year. And I got, somehow I got, I forget how that worked, but I got enlisted to be in the Hawaii Woman Lawyers musical and had a lot of fun doing that. And that kind of got me back into the music scene as far as the legal music scene goes. And then David Hayakawa and my law school classmate, Catherine Lohenberg, put, they put together a show called Rock for Justice, which benefits charitable show and got to play with, you know, a lot of these judges and other lawyers in their shows, several shows we've had. So that's kind of come back to music for me. I asked you to bring your ukulele today and you brought that. So do you have a song that you could sing that reflects your feelings about Hawaii? Yeah. Let the sandbagging begin. You know, we've had a lot of fires here on the mainland. Smokey air, but I'll try my best. This song, a Hawaiian song I really like is called Mauna Loa and I like just kind of the falsetto and my grandparents love the song too. And they're a big part of my connection to Hawaii being, you know, Hawaii people their whole lives. So yeah, I play Mauna Loa for my life. Please, take it. Okay. Thank you. You've maintained your connections. You know, you left Hawaii, but you've made, I see you've maintained your collections. And I mean, what sort of advice would you give to young lawyers thinking about this? I mean, thinking the young Hawaii lawyers, okay. What kind of advice would you give them? Well, I mean, I think, you know, first and foremost, I think, you know, when you grow up in Hawaii, Hawaii, it goes with you everywhere you go, like that a lot of spirit and that, you know, heart you have, don't, don't ever lose it and keep it with you because it's, you know, in some respects, it's the practice of laws is less cordial, right? It's a bigger, bigger sea, so to speak. And you don't run into the same people all the time, but don't lose sight of who you are and what your values are and how you want to practice law one. And, you know, I always think of that slogan, don't mistake my aloha for weakness. You know, I think you could still be cordial and professional and civil while still being firm and advocating for your client. As far as, you know, the lawyers who want to make that jump and leap, I'd say you definitely can. The practice of law is kind of this, you know, each jurisdiction has its own quirks and rules of procedure and case law and stuff, but by and large, it's all the same skill sets, it's all the same, you know, kind of everything you do. So, you know, don't be intimidated by the size of cases or firms or any of that stuff. You know, you can do it. And I found actually, you know, for every lawyer I've run into here that's, you know, backed by a massive international firm too, that has, you know, right, 20 page demand letter to you with 50 cases cited, you know, they probably put eight associates on. For every one of those guys, there's like 10 people that, you know, are no better or if not maybe significantly worse than the lawyers I went up against in Hawaii. And I think part of that is the economics of practicing in Hawaii. You know, if you're not good, whatever that means, if you're not good, it's hard to make it. You're really, it's really hard to make it as a lawyer in Hawaii if you're not gifted. I think for a couple reasons, the economics, like I mentioned, and then word gets out quicker, you know, hey, you know, this person, that person's not up to snuff. So, you know, the top tier construction lawyers in Hawaii I think could go up against construction lawyers from anywhere in the world really in my experience. And so, you know, that's, that's, it was cool realization I had when I think, you know, sort of my first big hearing here, I'm like, hey, wait a second, you know, this isn't, this isn't any different. And, you know, I think it's a testament to the Hawaii legal community and how we practice and, and yeah, so. Oh, no, no, and just pulling this all into your music too. Has that, has your ukulele and your Hawaiian music helped you in this journey? You know, it has been, I really almost, so I started playing on like Facebook and stuff when lockdown started. And I really wasn't, I would do the shows, you know, with Hawaii women lawyers and Rock for Justice, but other than that, I wasn't tying or performing at all. So, on one hand, it helped kind of keep my sanity throughout the pandemic and just feeling that connection to home, you know, feeling that connection to the culture, the people and, you know, through the music has been really helpful, you know, and going more in, I played a lot of classic rock stuff all through college and getting more into the actual Hawaiian music has been really nice and just, you know. So, let me, let me ask you, do you have a song to sing about your new home in the Rocky Mountains that you, you could share? Yeah, I probably should have learned John Denver's Rocky Mountain High, given the title of the show, but you know, one, a song, a Hawaii song that I play here when, when I'm thinking of home and all the people I love back home is a Kalapano one. And I could play that one. Is that, is that okay? Yeah, make it, make it. Yeah, all right. So, here we go. Once I thought she didn't really need me, all those silly games really hurt too. For you, that chase of rainbow has met the most foe, all the shoulders to me and you and starry skies, and see her sleep without you, sleep brings back to memory, she's gone and my skies gray, left my heart. All right. Thank you. Now, you mentioned your face, you mentioned your Facebook and I saw a quote from Tim Tebowl on your Facebook. I want to put that up on the screen. It says, when you die, there's going to be a tombstone. It's going to have your name, it's going to have the year you're born and the day you die. In between, there's going to be a dash, and that dash is going to represent everything you did in your life, good and bad. That's how you're remembered. And then Tim Tebowl ends with, what do you want your dash to represent? Well, let me ask you, what do you want your dash to represent? I think a lot of times we, and when I say we, I mean me, I get caught up so much in being successful and the practice of law is very competitive and you're litigating and you want to win, win, win. But I think when I really sit down and think about how I want to be remembered, what I want that dash to represent, I really want people to remember me as someone who was very helpful and had a lot of love for everybody and the community and Ohana and friends and everyone. I think that's, to me, that's more important than really anything is making sure I positively impact and touch lives and let people know they are loved and supported and seen and all of those great things. So that's something beyond legal practice, although it can combine with legal practice and it can be part of your legal practice and that's good. That's a nice sentiment. Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, having compassion for your clients and, you know, the situation they're in, that helps a lot. I think that giving them that aloha can go a long way. Ah, okay. That's cool. Aloha. So aloha plays a part in your practice and you become a human lawyer, not just a lawyer. That's good. Good advice. I like that. Now, you know, I want to thank you. We're at the end of our program, but I understand you have a song to close out this law across the program. I do. And, you know, I'm hoping this could be the theme here of the show. All right. All right. Well, thank you for that. I guess that will become our theme song. Oh, thanks for that. Okay. Okay. Ryan, well, you know, have a good time in the Rocky Mountains and, you know, I'm glad you've maintained your Hawaii connections in so many ways. And so really good to talk to you. Good to hear you. Love your songs. Take care. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you so much, aloha.