 back to another top story with John Waihei. And today is a special program for a lot of reasons. And the most important of which is we're going to be talking about one of Hawaii's great public servants. And equally important, one of the nicest human beings I've ever had the privilege of and probably one of the best lawyers I've ever gotten to know. So my guest this afternoon is Jay Fidel and our subject is CJ Ronald Moon. Now, Ron, it was just honored in the special session of the Hawaii Supreme Court. The court actually reconvened itself, had a special session, and I was there in honor to talk a little bit about the CJ. And I can tell you that there was a good cross-section of people that, you know, reminisced about him and the rest. And I know that you knew who he was, Jay. So why don't we just get started, you know? I had the privilege of, well, I'll tell you the first though, I'll open up this, since this would be a conversation between the two of them. My introduction to Ron Moon, and there's a follow-up story to this story, okay? My introduction to Ron Moon was one of when I, early on, I was a plaintiff's lawyer. I mean, he was a workers' compensation case. Ron was doing a lot of work in compensation cases way back in the, you know, way back. And so when I, as a young lawyer, so this has got to be about 1976, the right after I passed the FAR. And I'm working for, and I'm a plaintiff's lawyer, and I'm working hard on this case just to prove that I can, I can do it, you know, to my, the partners in my law firm, which is very plaintiff-oriented, very labor-oriented, shim, seagulls, and the night of. And anyway, out of the blue, I get this settlement off. And I look at it, and, wow, it's, it's, it's actually a little bit about fair. And I think that the first thought that occurs to me is I must have calculated wrong. I can't believe this was a defense attorney would be selling. And then, so when, but when I checked it out with the senior partners in the litigators, no, that's a good offer, you know, and the guy's name was Ron Moon. And from then he always impressed me as being a person, an attorney. There he is, you know, for the people to see, it's former Chief Justice Ronald Moon. And impressed me as a person who was fair. Now, the follow-up story is also speaking today is the former chair of the Hawaii Board of Flower Exam, Robert Chong. I don't know if you remember, Robert, but, and so he come, we come, so his story about that, right after that, not long after that, he had a case against me. And, you know, I put my client on, on, on the stand and did all of that. And I won the case. You know, and he said, say, you beat my case and so forth. So he had to go back. The reason why this is connected is that he was the clerk, then attorney, Ron Moon. And Moon gave him a lecture about why in the world would you lose to him? I never knew that before. See, you know, so that's when I got interested in his career. When he became judge, you know, I started paying attention to him because he had this reputation for being, yeah, he was definitely, you know, he was definitely defending his life. He was no doubt a trans lawyer, but he was very skillful in knowing what the line was, you know, what, what was fair for everybody. And, you know, plaintive lawyers have a hard time admitting that defense guy's no fair at all, you know, because, but, you know, he seemed to have reached it. Yeah. So anyway, he was in front of yours as well as mine. So maybe you can kick it off with some. Oh, I thought he was a very powerful lawyer and a great people skills. And that's, you know, that's why I think he could find fairness that would, you know, that would suit everybody. He liked everybody. I thought, I thought Ron Moon liked everybody. And, and his sense of humor played in all that because he was one of the funniest men, the funniest lawyers and judges. I'm sure you know what I mean. He was, there was always an abiding sense of humor below the surface and it would pop out anytime. Well, that was the conversation this whole afternoon about his joke book and where he got it and how he did it and how he kept it running. And, you know, he did have this weird sense of humor. And I, I used to kid him, you know, like he actually told us today, people would ask me, why, why would I, why, why would you appoint him? Why? Just like that. Why would you appoint him? And one of the people who asked me that was strange, it was Ron himself. He said, why would you appoint me? I'm a Republican, you know? And I told him, I said, Ron, because that'll make me look good. And he had a terrific laugh, you know? And he was really an interesting guy. And he had an interesting career, you know, before he was judge. Well, he thought of what the Hawaiians call kolohe or rest or a rascal. And he used to be a member of this junior chamber of Congress. And in those days, the junior chamber of Congress was not the civilized organization that it's become having, you know, allowed female members. Back then they were notorious, you know, and then here later on, he's doing his great job and everything. So I used to kid him, I said, you know, see, that's how I know you had the potential for growth. Because look at what you are today. And look at all those antics back then. And he was a great guy just to talk. Yeah, well, that, you know, his great strength, you were mentioning it before the show was a settlement judge. Because as I was saying, you know, he liked everybody. He liked even the people that were not so nice. He liked them too. He liked all of humanity. And so you get in a settlement conference with him. And there were no bad guys or good guys. It was only guys that he related to. It was only justice or fairness or whatever. And he would bring everybody into it. And I recall that, you know, you had this sense of he's going to force me to a position of fairness. And he wants me to come into his view of the world. And I'm willing to come in because, as you said, he was very Akamai about where the line was. So he had two books he talked about. Do you recall ever had in contact with this? He had two... But I know about the joke book. I'm not fighting out this. Make that three books. But he had the purple book. The purple book is if you didn't come in with enough authority to settle it within his view of the case. And you would... And he said, you don't want to be in my purple book because, you know, you're not going to like the result. And then there was... And then he said, instead, if you don't come in with any authority at all to settle, you're going to be in my black book. And you won't like that at all. I doubt it existed, John. It was just a way that he twisted your arm, you know. But I tell you what, he didn't like that as a trial judge, though. He didn't like attorneys who showed up late. He's a very meticulous person. And that was talked about today. And also a lot about... Well, one thing about Ron was he had this great sense of institution. And in fact, that was the... See, when I was appointing judges, I felt that it was the traditional selections job to really go and check out credentials and do all of it. And they should never send the appointing authority, anybody who wasn't qualified to start with. So, you know, obviously I'd review the materials, but that really wasn't my interest. My interest was what kind of person this judge was. And these stories that we're telling insights to who he was and why, ultimately, I appointed him to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice. But one of the areas that really impressed me was his sense of institution, the importance of the judiciary and how it was not a judge's job to be influenced by what made big swirling around him as much as what was the justice in the case. You know, what was the justice in the case? And as a result, his court came up with some pretty... Well, first of all, they came up with some pretty important decision, which I don't think he gets as much credit for. I mean, Chief Justice Richardson, who I also admired a lot, gets a lot of credit for some of his decisions. But people forget that, for example, the whole idea of allowing people to marry anybody they love started in the... It was a decision of the Moon Court. Yeah, Mayor versus Moon. Steve Levinson wrote that, in particular. Yeah, in fact, I cannot tell you. This is the story. This is the story. I'll tell you one more story. And this is sort of a joyful day in that sense. But remembering these things, for myself as a lawyer, I had this appreciation that the judiciary ought to be somewhat secular, different from the administration and so forth. And that gets pounded into you all the way through law school and all the way through the profession and the rest. And so, whether we like it or not, we stop to do it. In fact, like my wearing a tie with it, this first time in the years, it's because I had to go to the court. In fact, Chief Justice Wilson told me, you could wear a little shirt. I said, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because you just don't do it. Anyway. But there was one time, one time when I sort of broke my rule and actually called Ron Luna and said, look, you know, I got to come over to talk. I really want to talk. I need to find out what you guys think. Right? And the way that moment leads up, what leads up to that moment is I get a call from my then attorney general, Warren Price. And he says to me, Warren says to me, says, Governor, you are really going to want to read this decision. And I tell him, I'm telling him, I tell him, Warren, I don't read this decision. That's what happened. Attorney general, he said, no, no, you're going to, you want to see this decision. And I said, okay, who wrote it? You know? And he says, Levington, and I've just met another lawyer today. We were both joking because this is the same thing I said before. Levington ever written anything less than a hundred pages? You want me to read? It's funny. It's funny, but it's true. So anyway, I read the thing. And I'm going, whoa, wow. You know, this is really way out there. And we got to remember the idea of a traditional ruling saying that there is a constitutional right to marry anyone of your choice, irregardless of gender. Back in the early, well, I guess it was in the early 1990s, was revolutionary. It was. You know, so I immediately, that's what I call Ron. And I go over there, you know, and I'm walking in there, deeming so much for the separation of powers thing. This, this is hard work, man. You know, and I'm in there and I'm talking to Ron. Oh, and he's just sitting there. What are you guys doing? You could have reached the same result with a little bit, you know, to less use more judicious use of language. And he's just sitting there and he's looking at me and he's just saying, who appointed us? You appointed Levings. You appointed us. And that's, you know, get what you get. You know, I looked at him and I said to him, I said, you know, Ron, I'm actually really proud of you. I'm proud of your court. I'm proud of Leving. But I want you to know this separation of power stuff is something else because I got to go back and it's going to be hell to pay. And he just said, well, you know, but he did that with a number of decisions, critical decisions. And so I was, you know, I really felt good about about appointing, submitting his name for Chief Justice. And nobody gives him, well, they give him more credit. Nobody gave him credit as much as they should get some of the decisions. But we do fortunately recognize the role he paid as a really good administrator of the judiciary. Yeah, that's the thing. People don't realize that the Chief Justice is the administrator of the judiciary. It's a whole other job aside from all the, you know, decision making. And he was very good at that. Yeah. And he, you know, created these special courts that he and he persuaded the he persuaded. Now, you got to remember that some of these decisions like the Levinson decision affected the political side of the government, which meant that the legislature for a while was not too happy with all as they are from time to time, not too happy with the court. And so, you know, at the same time, he's trying to build a better judiciary. And he's going in for funding to build court buildings raises for judges, the rest of these things. And he had to go and win back the confidence of the another branch of government. Yeah, he did a good job of, you know, and he created he what one thing he really impressed me with was his insistence that that justice be swift. See, that's why he was a good some seven of the judge because he understood that even if one side of the other on at some point in the future, the cost of that time was also a factor that, you know, you winning in that situation was is ultimately not really winning. And and he didn't like people who use delay as a tactic. And so he and so his whole judicial system. And, you know, his objective was to make was to make justice as swift as possible. Yeah. And and and to make the judiciary as efficient as possible. And he would tell you everybody in the room. And that included the clients who were demanding or funding a given settlement. They were all there together, all trying to be efficient under his leadership, I would say. And as a result, he settled so many cases, you knew that if he was going to be a settlement judge in a given case, the likelihood was very, very high and would settle. And that was good for everybody. They may or may not admit it, but it was good for everybody. It was good for the whole system. Yeah. You know, and quite frankly, I don't think we've had a settlement charge that did that as well as he did, you know, move faces the law and fairly, you know, well, and he, I guess, well, you know, here I am, I'm supposed to host this program, and I'm still talking about him like I'm back at the special session. Is this the kind of thing that people were talking about at the special session? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's worth paying attention to. And I, you know, I know one of the speakers was Michael Roderick, who actually was his, I guess, I don't know what you call the assistant next to the Chief Justice that run court. But he was that before he was judge and he worked with. And, you know, the stories about how Moon would treat and deal with employee, you know, with a lot of equity and also the CJ's commitment to diversity. Yeah. Well, you know, it's very interesting that when I was thinking about this earlier today, I decided to look at his bar number, which was 674. Are you junior or senior to him? What's your bar number, Jeff? No, my bar number is 18, wait, 1864. Oh, you're a young pup. Compared to him, but not compared to the 11,500 numbers that they passed out today. So I went back to the bar, you know, HSBA dot was an ORG website. And lo and behold, there's the Think Tech Living Legend lawyers series on there. And I was so curious. I went through all of them to see if he was there. And he was there. He was in episode number seven. Okay. And yeah, and he was there with his partners, the Bronn Lipkeman was, you know, this was the law firm from which he sprung, Lipkeman and Jimmy Ventura. Jimmy Ventura. And Sid Iyavi. And it was just an amazing discussion. And you can see, he was a judge at the time. This is like 2015. And you could, or maybe he was retired by then? No, no, he was there. He had to be before 2010, I think. Yeah, okay. He was a retired judge by then. But you could really get to meet the man because of the comments he made about the firm, because, you know, every firm is complex, dynamic. Every firm has its own internal, external personalities. And that firm was a really powerful firm. I'm sure you knew at the time you appointed him how powerful he had been as a principal of that firm. They were very well known. Full career just on just practicing all. Yeah. But he really, he did choose to go become a judge. I mean, he wanted to do this. So I went and I went and I went and saw this thing and it is, it is on the Bar Association website. And all you have to do is go to HSBA.org and look for Living Legend Lawyers. And it was based on the three digit lawyers. You had to have a bar number of less than a thousand. What's your number if you don't mind me asking? No, 720. So you're one of the legend? I was a guest on those shows, as a matter of fact. Well, maybe in another 10 years I might make it. It's interesting because that was mentioned. That was one of the things that people discussed today, the fact that the bar grew so much over these years and in doing his tenure. And what one of the things that really impressed me was how much Ron really loved the institution of the judiciary. And Chief Justice Reckon-Wall talked about how much after Ron had retired and he got appointed, how much time Ron would spend at his request. Helping out and mentoring him, doing a lot of things that made life easier for his successor. He was dedicated to the practice of all. He was dedicated to being a trial judge and a settlement judge. And certainly he carried that forward to the CJA. You made a good appointment on that one. And what's more, and it goes back to Bayer versus Lewin and some of the other decisions that issued out of his court, he was an inflection point. Sure, William Richardson was a huge figure in the Hawaii judiciary, a huge figure. Native Hawaiian, Chinese, amazing man. And he sort of put us on the map initially. But Ron Moon was an inflection point. It was moving from one generation to another. He was my generation, I guess, and yours. And he was part of the new lawyer group, the group that would take us far beyond statehood, the group that would take us into being fully recognized as a state that followed judicial principles, rule of law, and all that. He moved us into another place. And I would call, I see if you agree, I would call him an inflection point in the history of the Hawaii judiciary. Would you? Oh, definitely. And he reflected us where we were as a society and what we wanted to become very well. And as I said, he was a justice who was in love with the institution of justice. And that was his call. He was also this Korean guy who liked to eat Korean food. So I remember, he called me up and he'd go to lunch. And I said, Ron, is there any place that you can take me to lunch? I shouldn't say this, but I will anyway. Any place that you can take me where I won't see a cockroach running across the floor. He was the neighborhood guy. He was the guy that he knew the spot where the food was important. And he loved doing it. Well, I think the memorable thing for me is that he loved people. He loved all people. He loved every lawyer and every party. He saw, you know, great judges are made of that kind of material. Earlier today, we had the grandson of Sam King, a federal judge here on ThinkTik. And it reminded me, of course, of Sam King. I thought the world of Sam King. And it was the same kind of thing, John. He loved everyone. Did you try Gases before Sam King? I did. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, it was amazing. It was one of these experiences. Unfortunately, I had, fortunately, I had co-consult, which means I could actually listen to some of this stuff and not just be there, you know, sweating my portion of it all. But I did the Kaholavi trials and all of that. And that was new law, breaking new ground, all this kind of stuff. And he and our client, my clients lost, obviously, because, you know, they basically, after we set up the premises of their defense, they basically went up there and said, you know, it's important to me that I get punished. I shouldn't say it like that. But, you know, they wanted to make a point that he did. But he did it with humor and with, you never felt bad about it. And I'm talking about people who felt very passionate about what they were doing. And what was interesting is that other people used our memo. And if we had stuck to the plan, we probably would have had the same result that those others had, which was the news major. And they all got, you know, the charges dismissed by Judge King. But, you know, I used to like to go to his court and just listen to, when I was in law school, go to Sam King's court and just to hear, just to be there as he conducted the trial. So yeah, he had some great lawyers at war. Yeah. And he was a fabulous judge. As I say, part of it was a sense of humor, just like Ronald. And part of it was the sense of this kind of avuncular care and concern for everybody who was in front of him. I remember one case, thinking about it, where it was March 20th. And one of the lawyers in the case said to Sam King, he said, Judge, I need more time to answer that pleading. I need another 20 days. And Judge says, okay, you can have him to a March 40th. Get to work. Anyway, there's a parallel that runs between those two individuals as judges. This avuncular thing where you knew at the end of the day, they were not going to hurt you. They were going to respect you as a member of the bar who is trying hard, representing his client. And this raised the level of practice for everybody. Because if you knew that about the judge, you would practice for him. And it's also nice to know that Judge probably knows, and I don't want this to be misunderstood, but they are judges who you go before and you're not really sure they know anything more than you. They know as much as you may have, you know, because of your preparation. In other words, but the thing about Ron Moon, and Sam King for that matter, particularly Ron, was that you knew he was a great trial law. And you knew, and he knew exactly where the buttons were. And he knew that, you know, this is this one little point in there, not all of the stuff that you were putting around it, but this was the nugget. And not every judge knows that. Oh, and once you as one of the counsel there, you as one of the litigators there, once you recognize that and you realize, you know, that you are in the company of somebody who is a fabulous litigator himself, and that he had, as you say, the nose for it. He knew where it was, and you conduct yourself differently. You're not going to try to pull the wool. You're not going to try to exaggerate because you know, he knows what's going on here. And that was so good. Well, I tell you, he was he was he was probably one as a judge. He was one of the best judges in terms of being a trial as a litigate. And that was a strength. Well, anyway, I see that we have run out of time. And Jay, I want to thank you for participating with me this afternoon on this sort of debriefing of a person that both of us have a great deal of respect for. And we've been very fortunate to have known him in our career. Thank you again. Thank you, John. And we will see everybody in or hear everybody in two weeks. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.