 We're on Wednesdays between 1 and 1.30, and thank you for joining us. We're with today, we're so lucky today to have a good friend and an industrious paralegal at our law firm, Clay Chapman, Iwamura Police and Neville. Her name is Martha Jane Urand, and we're going to talk a little bit about paralegal stuff and a lot a bit about what you did before you were paralegal, which is fascinating. Okay. Okay. How did you make the transition? Why did you decide to become a paralegal? It's actually a very cute story. I always knew how to type, and my career in show business was waning down because as a woman gets older, she works less in show business. Yes. And so one day a friend of mine called me up and she said, oh, this lawyer over in Santa Monica needs somebody to type. I said, I'm not driving all the way to Santa Monica. It'll take a half an hour. She said, you need the money. I said, oh, all right. Well, it turned out to be this fantastic attorney named Charles R. English, who the Charles R. English Award and the American Bar Association in Criminal Defense is named in his honor. Oh, well, how nice for you. Yes. And we had celebrity clients like when Jack Nicholson took the golf club and bashed somebody's car, that firm represented him. Oh, you must be so proud. Oh, yes. Yes. And so then I had property in Hawaii and I decided, you know, why is somebody in my condo in Hawaii and I'm on the freeway stuck here in Los Angeles. So I moved over to Hawaii and very luckily found work as a paralegal right away when I moved here. When was that? 2001, May 15th, 2001. Oh, it's a while. Yes. And I worked at another firm before. I worked at Kessner Obayashi Bain in Matsunaga doing the same thing, you know, litigation defense. People should know how in-demand paralegals are. It's really hard to get a good paralegal and we're lucky Martha's very organized and very, well, she's very well educated also. So if you're contemplating a career in the law and you're not maybe ready to go to law school, you might try it out as a paralegal. Even if you are contemplating going to law school, you should try it out as a paralegal, I think. Yes. Well, what's interesting is that here in Hawaii we don't require certification for you to call yourself a paralegal. In some states unless you take very, very intense training and a very, very complicated exam, which people compared to passing the bar. Really? In some states you have to call yourself a legal assistant. You cannot use the term paralegal. But here in Hawaii you can because they're not certified. So it's paradise for paralegals here too? Yes, I think so. For everybody else? Yes. Yes. So I'm a lawyer. I have no idea. What does a paralegal do? It seems to me you do almost anything a lawyer does. Yes, well, the law is that you can't give any legal advice to anyone. You do work under the supervision of an attorney. So what I do is a lot of summaries and writing reports. Other paralegals do more of what we call transactional work, which is they get involved in bankruptcies and filing of documents and stuff which I don't do that kind of paralegal work. That's really complicated. It's very complicated. I haven't had training. You're a litigation paralegal. Yes. You've always been a litigation paralegal. Yes. And we do what's called insurance defense. For instance, if heaven forbid somebody has a car accident and the person's car got hit and somebody's suing them, the insurance company will hire an attorney to represent them based upon what their policy involves. And so a lot of times that's the kind of work that we do. And we have to investigate everything, look at the medical records, make sure that the injuries are as claimed. Some people try and put a stubbed toe into like a million dollar claim. Really? We prevent that. Yeah. So do you think the field of paralegals is a growing field? Or do you think it's a diminu... To me, it seems like it should be a growing field. Well, as long as there are more and more lawyers, there's going to be more and more paralegals. Because, for instance, it might come as no surprise to you that paralegals make less than lawyers. So a lot of times, especially the insurance companies, want as much of the work done by paralegal because it costs them less. Right, right. But again, it's always under the supervision of the attorney. Well, the paralegals that I've worked with are just terrific. And, you know, since I'm new to Hawaii and there's rules I'm not familiar with and courts I'm not familiar with, they've just been invaluable in helping assist me through the system. I mean, the law is very similar, but the structure is not exactly the same as it is in New York. Right. So there's different courts and stuff like that. Right. You can't just open a phone book and get the phone number of the judge's chamber. You've got to know somebody who knows that all important phone number. You have to get through to the judge for any reason. Right, right. Especially in Hawaii, it's really who you know. The more people you know, the better off you are. Yes. We have found out over your period here. So, you know, this is my theory. My theory is that litigators particularly, particularly, particularly, particularly, and trial lawyers absolutely are thwarted actors. I've met so many trial lawyers who wanted to be actors or had gone to acting school and knew actually, so exciting, were an actor, were a comedian, nationally known, and you decided to go into the field of law. And is there any connection at all? In a certain sense, you know, you have to always act like you know what's going on. And there have been a couple of attorneys, not at our firm, of course, or the other firm I worked at. But, you know, through the years, a couple of attorneys who really didn't know what they were doing and projected that lack of knowledge. That's not good. That's not good. That doesn't engender confidence in your attorney. No, not at all. So, I think that there's some sort of bravura or, you know, feelings of grandiosity or something that lends itself to making a person feel comfortable in the legal field. All right. I see what you're saying. Yes. You play a lawyer. I mean, actually, it sounds kind of crazy, but you do. My interactions as a lawyer are completely authentic, but different than my interactions as Mary and Sasaki, you know, personal friend or, you know, tennis partner or whatever. I do put, I suit up. I suit up and I become a lawyer when I walk into the office usually. Yeah. Or I do it sometimes at home, but mostly when I walk into the office. Yeah, I find that it's also good to be here in Hawaii because the standards of dress are not what they are in Los Angeles or New York. For instance, I'm very casually dressed at work because I don't usually see clients. If I know I'm going to see clients, I'll make a little extra effort. But usually it's just me and the computer and all of the 9,000 pounds of documents that I'm like pouring through. Well, I feel like I'm so used to New York and having worn a suit for so many years that I kind of feel prepared if I'm dressed up. If I'm not, when it's casual day, I kind of feel like not, I just don't get into the role as easily. It's a little bit more, I do a lot more filing and a lot more slumping around the office, you know, that kind of thing. So where are you from originally? How did you get into acting? I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I went to Harvard University and I was studying. As did I. I wear alma mater. Yeah, but she went to the law school. Yeah, but it's still Harvard. It's Harvard. It's Harvard. Anyway, so I was studying human populations and natural resources, you know, environmental things. And then one day I said, oh, I'm going to take a dance class. I'll get physically fit. It'll be fun. The next thing I know, I'm majoring in modern dance. I'm not doing any other courses. And so all of the dances that I would choreograph, and I did receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for my choreography. Wow. I was in the 70s, you know. And all my dances ended up being funny. And so that sort of like pushed me into doing stand-up comedy. Right. Which takes so much nerve. I think it takes so much nerve. Oh, no. It doesn't take any nerve to do stand-up comedy. It takes a lot to get the bookings. That's the hard part. Is it really hard, yeah? Yeah, because unless you're at a certain level, you've got to phone up the people and go, hey, any openings in October, you know, you have to call months in advance. And you know, you sort of get into a thing where if you know somebody who's well-known, they can recommend you. And then you get to know the, like I was very good friends with Jay Leno and his wife, Mavis. And I've written jokes for Jay Leno, you know, when he was still doing the tonight show. You know, you have to be on an approved list. Right, that, yeah. Because, you know, just anybody could just sort of like steal somebody else's joke and send it in. They have to know that you're the real deal, and you wrote the joke. Right, right, right. So you began touring around the country when you did it? Yeah, I toured all over the United States, Canada, even Mexico, like the resorts had comedians. I was in the west end of London. They had a club there for a while. And I was very popular in the Cayman Islands. Really? Yes. You know what? Or just... They had so many Americans there, because I guess for the offshore banking and whatever. Although if you go there, there's no actual banks. It's a post office boss. No, yeah. Even the law firms there, we always joke that it's great to be a Cayman Islands lawyer because you spend your whole day on the golf course because it's just really a mailing address. That's true. You just, you know, issue an opinion every now and then. And avoid subpoenas. Yeah, it's just, it's like, it's almost, it's better than here. It's almost more, because you're insulated a little bit. So was it, so this was in the 80s. So was it difficult as a woman to, yes. Yes. Again? Yeah, they would, there were different standards for women and for men. Like guys could basically get up and tell all kinds of jokes, especially if it was a club where, you know, there was no censorship. Whereas at the same club, you know, women would come in and half the time the manager would say, no, don't talk about this, don't talk about that. You mean it can't be disgusting if you're a woman? No, now Amy Schumer has blazed a trail for a lot of women in comedy. But in those days, you know, it just wasn't done. And then Roseanne came along and was like a big tough guy in a dress. Right, right, right, right. So, such a powerhouse. That's so interesting that the owners would think that they could censor what your material. I mean, well, they have it now that they have a whole bunch of comics that go to churches and they do what they call clean comedy. You know, there's no swearing as you would find in a normal comedy club. Right. But even here, they have a lot of comedy on the military basis and for military personnel here. And it's very serious. They don't want any swearing. You know, they have a certain standard that has to be upheld. And if you break the rules, you don't come back. Well, that's... Well, you know, this is kind of an interesting topic because Bill Mares won't play college campuses anymore because they're too politically correct and so he has to guard what he says. Do you have any opinion on, like, the increasing political correctness of society and the difficulty of being a comedian in that society? I mean... Yeah. I mean, it's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. I think that there are... You know, there's a reason why some comedy is on HBO and is uncensored and some is on, you know, NBC and is not censored. Although you find that if you watch somebody that's on Seth Meyers at late night, it'll be a little bit more raunchy than the stuff that was earlier. Yeah, like it's little by little, gradations, yeah. Yeah. And there are a lot of comics that started out as lawyers. That's right. Well, we'll have to talk about those when we come back. You're watching Life in the Low with Marion Sasaki and Martha Jane Uran. Yes. And we'll be right back after a few moments. Aloha. My name is Reg Baker and I'm the host of Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday at 2 o'clock. We highlight businesses and individuals that are successful in Hawaii and we learn their secrets to their success. I hope you can join us and listen in because we always have a pack of information on successful stories in Hawaii. Aloha. Hi, this is Jane Sugimura. I'm the co-host for Kondo Insider and we're on Think Tech Hawaii every Thursday at 3 o'clock and we're here to talk about condominium living and issues that affect condominium residents and owners and I hope you'll join us every week on Thursday. Aloha. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii offering lifelong learning from passionate hosts and fascinating guests ready to explore and explain Hawaii's place in the 21st century. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha. I'm Marion Sasaki. You're watching Life in the Law in Think Tech. We're talking to Martha J. Iran about what lawyers that became comics. So who are the... Is there anybody I would know? I think maybe Brad Garrett was one of them. Oh, really? Yeah. They just... You were talking about like the ability to perform. Lawyers have an ability to perform and sometimes, you know, they take it another step and... Well, you know, I can... You know, going to law school is such an eye-opener. I can definitely say... I know somebody who became an actor instead of going to law school because they really were really... I mean, it's really hard and really miserable and if you don't love it or you don't want to love it or you don't think you can use it, you're better off doing something you love like comedy or acting or something like that. So tell me about... You're like TV shows, the TV shows you were on. Did you have a type? Sitcoms. Okay. I was in a sitcom called Lenny which was a CBS primetime show and it starred Lenny Clark who was a well-known comedian from Boston and I played the obnoxious neighbor and I had to do it in a Boston accent which was easy for me to do because I'm from there and I played Mrs. Margaret Lubey. Was it on for a while? A year. Oh, that's not bad. And then it happened that it was during the first Gulf War and when the show was on was when the Skud missiles were attacking and so the ratings were low. Oh, that's too bad. You know, it's heartbreaking. I know people work so hard they make pilots and the pilots don't get picked up. Oh, I did a few pilots that didn't get picked up and you never know. I think that's heartbreaking. Especially if you go out and buy a new car and then you get to pay for it. Well, yeah. Which I did. You shouldn't. You shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch. So what was it like as a woman in the 80s, you know, was there a casting couch? No, no, no, no, no. Well, maybe there was but I was never invited on to it. It's like me. I say I can never make a living off my body. Everybody always wants in my mind. When I was a kid I could always make a living off my body, you know. Oh, I had a joke. I used to do a trailer part character in my act and her favorite song was He May Be On My Body But It's You That's On My Mind. That's funny. So now what happened when I started comedy was so different now. Like if you read Amy Schumer's book and I think she's a great comic. The comics now have to go out and literally provide the audience for the club. Wow, that's hard. Very hard. When I did it on Monday night and this is in Los Angeles on Monday night you went to the comedy store on Tuesday night you went to the Laugh Stop in Encino and on Wednesday night it was another place down in Newport Beach and then on Thursday night you went to the Ice House in Pasadena. But comedy was so popular. I mean I used to go to comedy shows. I haven't been to a comedy show in probably 25 or 30 years but you know I remember when I was growing up there were comedy clubs all over the place everybody went. So what do you think happened? Well I think there was a proliferation of comedians. Like when I did it it was very easy to get work. You know once you were known because they knew you would do a good job and that you know things were okay. I will tell you about the time I got fired. Oh okay. Alright I went to this club it was in Binghamton New York and the weeks usually went like Tuesday through Sunday so Tuesday night I thought the show had gone really really well and then Wednesday morning I get a call in my hotel room the holiday in and it's the manager of the club and she said we need you to come over and I went oh maybe I have to do some publicity or something. Right. So I get there and she's got cash on her desk and she says we're going to pay you for the whole week but you know we don't need you. Really? I said do you mean I'm fired? She said yes and I was so hurt. I said well what's wrong? She said nothing's wrong with you except you look too much like the boss's ex wife and you can't stand the sight of you. That's hilarious. True story. True story. That is hilarious. Well at least you got paid for the week. Then it gets better. Then it gets better. I get in my car and I go down and all the comedians in New York used to hang out in front of the improv or in the improv you know the lounge there and one of the comedians who had a drinking problem had gone on a binge and so they called up the club to see if anybody was available for the rest of the week to go and fill in for the comedian that was on the binge so I worked there I got paid twice that week. Oh that's terrific. Not always did those things happen. No because I mean my little knowledge of like I had some knowledge with like rock and roll shows and that kind of thing and it was always get the money get the money first because if you don't get the money first you can never be sure Oh yeah don't take a check from a nightclub owner. Right no definitely not. So what would you tell some young woman like what would you advise people who wanted to do comedy now? I mean I wouldn't know I wouldn't know because I think you have to have like I think you have to be famous before you get famous I mean people have plucked from YouTube all the time. I think YouTube would be a good way to go because you know you're out there you're responsible for your material I think a lot of people have trouble writing material and they have these schools to teach people how to do comedy and you know I think it's better if you just do it on your own rather than try and submit to a formula. Right right well you know the thing is you're so educated you're educated you know I mean I think what's behind good comedy is intelligence and behind good paralegals are also intelligent and I wonder do you ever feel overly qualified as a paralegal like I have had this glamorous field and you know the hardest thing for me as a paralegal is the legal sites you know like you know Hawaii 30 1982 Citation yeah because I was never trained to do that that's a whole separate field and requires a very immense knowledge so I have to rely on assistance from either the attorney I'm working for or one of the associate attorneys But there are lacks I think in Hawaii about citations and somebody told me that I don't know I was on a journal in law school so I learned how to blue book and I do it the same every time and nobody's ever said anything so I'm assuming it's probably okay but I know that they're not at least in the state courts they're not tremendous sticklers for you know parallel citations and you know jump citations and things like that so who so people in the office help you with the sites yes yes and do you know how to use Lexis um vaguely I find as you know one of our colleagues David that's a Mia right has shown me how to access reference materials through the bar association and I find that that's a little bit easier and also less costly to the law firm right to be able to be assisted by the bar David was a paralegal and he became a lawyer I can't imagine he teaches paralegal now at the university right right which by the way KCC it is KCC yes yes is a terrific university for paralegals it's I think world-regarded it's widely known yes renowned and um several of paralegals in our office Laurel have I guess certificates from there yeah and they have to take a test I think it's called PACE P-A-C-E right and they're entitled to write that after their name but do you think that do you think you don't you don't really do you need that do you need to go to paralegal school do you think right I mean I would know the first think about helping somebody go through a bankruptcy I don't know anything about it right I don't know about registering deeds other than my own condo right you know these are things that definitely need to be taught by somebody who knows what they're doing right um but see so there's room for all sorts of people in the paralegal support on the case and how it's going the background what happened what are the issues so I can do that sort of thing um and I'm good at that I have a facility for remembering certain stupid things why I don't know it's trivia but I right right well I think you know and I'm not saying you're older I'm putting me myself in the same category you know I think this um really affects your memory I think that you know having had to I mean when I was a kid you have to concentrate you have to memorize poems for example and memorize things and it was much more you know an athletic work out I think for the mind then now it's really everything is in short bites and it's kind of distracting I have never tweeted I don't do it I don't even like texting I think it's like if you want to call me pick up the phone I'll answer the phone but everybody under 30 is completely opposite but I see all these people like practically getting killed walking across the crosswalk I know you know texting and entering things they're not looking around somebody's going to get hurt but don't you think we'll have to take the case a law firm law firm should be technologically savvy though I think a modern law firm is a technologically savvy law firm I think yes yes well you've got to have people who know how to do these things you know it's like you know and everybody went from selectric typewriters to first it was like the DOS system and computers and then you know everything that we have now first all the lawyers wanted word perfect now they're all in word right you know you have to sort of keep up with what's going on so let me ask you a question the preponderance of people in paralegal that are practicing paralegals of women right yes do you think that depresses the salary do you think if there were more men in the field would that be great because I think the salaries should be more higher because they really are kind of like quasi you know they do a lot of work that attorneys do you know yeah I think that I knowing some of the paralegals who are male I don't think they make any more money than the female paralegals I think but I mean the fact that there are so many women in the profession itself depresses the profession you know what I mean I don't know I you know like nursing historically didn't pay well and teaching and these fields that women entered but I'm you know I see I see I'm such a feminist I see discrimination lurking around every corner well you know I went to Harvard and when I was there it's when Harvard and Radcliffe merged and we always did a big zip compared to the scholarship money available to men at Harvard because when women graduated from Harvard they didn't usually make a lot of money whereas men go into business and have a lot of money to leave the school I was just reading an article in Today's New York Times it was fascinating about the dearth of women billionaires apparently there's a the number of billionaires that are women are tiny infinitesimal fraction compared to how many men and obviously I post that on my Facebook page women have to learn how to deal with money in a aggressive hard-headed way and not shy away from dealing with money you know and ask for what they're worth this is like one of my big issues the leaning in kind of thing so I thought it was pretty interesting but that would make sense that women who graduated from Radcliffe in the 70s it would have been they were just fighting their way into the corporate world to get jobs or they'd marry a guy from Harvard it happened get an MRS degree I just before we go I'd just like to say I'm a member of the Hawaii women lawyers and we have a luncheon series every month and we email women lawyers to come and attend and there are great speakers and I urge everybody out there to come and attend I promised the women lawyers I would mention this on my show today hopefully we'll be able to get here as well but and you should come too even though it's women lawyers I think they accept anybody it's just kind of depends on whether or not you're charging them to get in and they'll take any money they'll take right exactly exactly but thank you so much for joining us today oh thank you for asking me it's always so fascinating to find people stories and how they make their way and so thank you for fascinating show you're very