 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 in the downtown studios of Think Tech Hawaii and the Pioneer Plaza. I want to do a little shout out today. I was watching KHON last night and they have a new business segment on there. It's brand new, first premiere showing Business Matters and it was an evening broadcast. It's so good to see that some of the local media is picking up the theme of highlighting successful businesses in Hawaii. And that's what this show is all about. This show, Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker, is about highlighting those individuals and those businesses that have made it successful in Hawaii despite all the challenges and we've heard of what all those challenges are, the cost of living, the Jones Act, the regulations, the taxes, etc. etc. So there's acknowledgement that yes, they're out there but there are people who have made it successful. They're doing well and it's important that we highlight those success stories and I'm very thankful that KHON has decided to join me in highlighting those success stories here in Hawaii. Today we've got some more success stories to talk about. There's a firm called Schlakito that's got two very dynamic attorneys. They probably have a few other attorneys there too but the two that we have on the show today is Matt Matsunaga and Tony Doniz. They're going to be here today and share a little bit about themselves and about their firm and how they're out there helping businesses in a lot of different ways and helping the law profession in Hawaii. So welcome to the show, Matt. Thank you very much, Reg. Last time I was here we were talking about workers comp issues and very much appreciate the chance to appear again. Yeah and that's a big expense item in Hawaii and it's important to control that and I guess you and we had a physician with you I think. We had Dr. Scott McCaffrey and talk about how to get an injured worker back to work and hopefully with minimal consequences to his or her family. And that helps control the costs. Absolutely. Keep things down and that's important to do that. Today you've got another guest that you brought with you, Tony. Tony, welcome. Thank you for having us. Yeah of course. You're relatively new with the firm. That's correct. I've been with the firm approximately a year and a half now and I was formerly a prosecutor, a deputy prosecuting attorney, but before I joined this firm. Which prosecutor did you work for? The Carlisle Laney? No, no, no. The current. The current guys. Okay. All right. Well it's great to have you on the show. It's great and we're gonna talk a little bit more about you and your background here shortly but Matt for those watching today that didn't catch the first show that you were on, can you just give us a quick brief background on who you are and what you've done? Sure, Rich. I don't know how far back you want me to go but I was born in Queens Hospital. Good. Now let me start with I was actually like you, Rich. I was a CPA working in Washington DC for Price Waterhouse. Great firm. My father came to me one day and he said, what do you think about going to law school? Because if you have an interest in politics it's really helpful to understand the law and he graciously said that he and my mom would pay for my law school education at Georgetown and so I agreed. I got tired of the fast cars of the CPA lifestyle so I went to law school. Well you know a few people know this but another definition of CPA is constant party animal. That's true. Yeah we work hard but we party hard. There were better lawyer jokes and there were CPA jokes. Yeah well we won't go there. Can you just explain real briefly your father was an influence? Who was your father? My father was the late United States Senator, Spark Matsunaga and he always believed that the best way to seek equality and justice in life is by changing the laws and that's what led him to go to law school. That's what led him into politics. And that took him to Washington. Absolutely yes and so I went to Georgetown Law School. Great school of course. Upon graduation 33 years ago I returned to my birth place and I've been practicing for 33 years the first 20 with another firm Carl Smith Ball and the past 13 with Schlackeetel and we're hard workers. We're not. We're Schlakers. We're not slackers. That's good. That's a good way to remember it. And what what does the firm do? Is there any particular specialization? Our firm is made up of former big firm attorneys who sought a more desirable atmosphere to practice with and we do primarily business transactional law although we have expanded in recent years to beef up our litigation department and of which Tony is a very proud member of our litigation folks but we do a lot of commercial leasing. We do a lot of corporate business planning. We have a nonprofit tax attorney. We have a PUC environmental attorney. Pretty much a broad spectrum of business aspects and then we also have our litigation team to augment that. And I notice I think there was a real estate component in there too a little bit. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And what area of real estate? I mean what what is it? Is it the conveyances? Is it rules regulations? Is it building? We have commercial leasing to help out landlords who own real estate. We also have acquisition folks who are familiar with buying and selling commercial real estate. We have those who are familiar with development of real estate whether it's through the condominium, statute or through other aspects but pretty much a wide variety. Very good. If you have land what do you want to do with it and how can we help you? How to maximize the value of that land too. Yeah. And what area do you spend your time in? I spend a lot of time in just business transactional things and I kind of equate myself to like a Swiss army knife so if a client comes to me and says Matt I have this problem how can you help solve it? And so I do quite a bit of real estate, quite a bit of corporate, quite a bit of governmental affairs where I can utilize my experience in the state senate and a lot of people in business don't realize the importance of how the state government or sitting county can actually help them achieve their goals. And so that's one of the aspects that I help advise my clients on. Well that almost sounds like you would be a good corporate counsel in the sense that whenever there's a legal issue regardless of what that is they come to you and you're like the first point of contact. You can either take care of it yourself or point them in the right direction. That's what I hope to be and I hope that my clients will see me as you know here's the problem. Help me figure out how to solve it and I can tell them I might not be the best person to solve the problem but hopefully I can identify all the issues and at least solve the problems I can't and point you in the direction to where others can help solve those problems. Very good well that's good to know. Tony, switching to you a little bit. How long have you been in Hawaii? You've been here for a long time. I've been in Hawaii since 1994 from Tacoma, Washington originally and it came over here to thaw out a little bit. Well the military sent me here truth be told and then I went to graduate school and I got a master's degree in linguistics and then I went to law school after that. So now you can speak Japanese? I do speak some Japanese yes. Very good. And some German actually but and just out of curiosity because I'm a veteran as well which branch of the Navy or Army? US Army. Okay very good. I came over in 73 a few years before you. Yes that was some time before me. But you came over and what after you got out of the Army you decided that you were gonna go to school and you started going to school here? That's correct. I did know at that time that the Linguistics Department at University of Hawaii was rather prominent and very strong so that was something I wanted to pursue from a department that was as good as UH. So I went into linguistics and I started teaching and I went to law school. So you started teaching you actually taught in Hawaii for a little while? That's correct yes I was there taught for about ten years. Very good. Alright what triggered you to explore a law career? Well it's something that's been in my brain for quite some time and actually I was telling Matt today that it was literally one of these stories where I wake up one day and I said well no that's it's time to start going to law school. Something again it had been thinking about for some time and then I just woke up I said nah today's the day we start. Wow. And I went and did it. It's kind of a big jump it's a change. It was it was considering well law school itself as a full-time sort of job for three years. And it's not cheap. It's not it's not I was working at the time and it was a team effort with my family certainly. Very good. Well congratulations and did you know at the time and some of these questions are triggered by the you know some members of the audience are watching this and they're intrigued you know about how somebody can can be ten years or more into a career and then all of a sudden say you know what I'm gonna do something different and you did. Yeah. And it's worked for you. And so when you decided to make that cut and go into law school did you know what part of law you wanted to focus on or did that kind of develop over time? Yes yes and no. I did have a strong idea of what I wanted to do but you understand when you're beginning in a career things change. I did want to do civil litigation which is what I'm doing now. However I also wanted to get courtroom experience trial room experience which often civil civil litigation does not give you because cases tend to settle out of court before they go to trial. That's usually the preferred one. Yes it's cheaper it's cheaper for the client so and that's one reason why I went to the prosecutor's office because it gave me the trial experience and the courtroom experience that I wanted. So before I joined Schlakito I had done close to a hundred trials actually. That's a good experience so I mean it helps well let me ask you that question does that help you in your negotiating skills? I mean is there a lot of negotiating involved? There's a lot of negotiating and the variables in the variables in that that take place during a civil settlement negotiation are actually quite different than those on the criminal side. The criminal side is like here's what the fine is and here's how here's how long the jail sentence is gonna be the prison sentence. It's just that's it and it's you know there it sounds almost like the tax code. Yeah and civil side is much more nuanced there's much a greater number of variables going on and so just it's really different very very different. Very good but that's and you did different number of years and then what what triggered you to leave the prosecutor's office to go into private practice? So I don't know if Matt knows this part of the story but I had actually been having one eye on the firm for about two years and then what attracted you to the firm? So there's I look at work as being in four quadrants there's like good people doing good work good people doing bad work bad people doing bad work and like bad people who just like randomly happen to do good work. You're starting to sound like an attorney. Yeah and so the firm I'm at now I can confidently say it's amazing because it's good people doing good work and that's for me in my experience it's a very rare combination. Well let's take a quick break and we're gonna come back in about one minute I want to just follow on to that question a little bit about how that process worked you know maybe from both of your perspectives on how you identified the firm and how did you go through the process of landing that that opportunity. But this is business in Hawaii Reg Baker we're gonna be taking a quick 60 second break and we'll be right back. I'm going to the game and it's gonna be great early arriving for a little tailgate. I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line keeps him from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm Winston Welch and every other Monday at 3 p.m. you can join me at Out and About a show where we explore a variety of topics, organizations, events and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world so please join us every other Monday at 3 and we'll see you then. Welcome back. This is Reg Baker, business in Hawaii. We're talking with a couple attorneys today and talking about the process of going to law school and selecting a firm, getting hired and some of the different areas of law that's practiced in this firm and by the individuals. And there's a lot of business, a lot of commercial connection to this. And one of the trick questions I'm gonna ask them towards the end of the show is how, what would their advice be in having a company come to them for legal support? You know, if they needed some help, how do you work with an attorney? What's the secret of working with an attorney? And there's a lot of people out there that think they need an attorney but they're not quite sure exactly how to approach it. And so I'm gonna leave them with that thought there for a minute. We'll come back in a few minutes and talk about that. But Tony, you were talking a little bit about you kind of had identified the firm that you wanted to join with and you were impressed with the type of practitioners that they had there and that was a group that you wanted to affiliate with. So how did it go from there? Did you reach out to them directly or did Matt reach out to you or how did that all happen? I didn't know Matt until I joined the firm. But I did know one of the name partners of the firm, Carl Schlag. I knew Carl for approximately two years before I joined the firm and I knew the firm first through Carl. Very good. And Matt, what is the process when somebody approaches a firm or there's maybe another one of the partners have an interest in bringing in somebody. What's the process? Do they go through an interview, a sequence of interviews or do they talk? How does that work? First the partners or members of the firm would gather and we do have monthly meetings. We talk about needs of the firm and in Tony's particular case there was a need for assistance in the litigation department. Our then sole litigator was Derek Kobayashi, our litigation partner. We subsequently added another litigation partner named Reggie Niwao. But Derek was just overwhelmed and he needed help and he needed help fast. So one of the partners had recommended Tony and we of course scrutinized his resume very closely and we brought him in for interviews. I'm going to interrupt three interviews. Quite a few, you know, gave him various tests, you know, and I'm kidding about the tests, but the interviews you learn a lot about the candidate. Well they may not be written tests but you probably asked some pretty interesting questions to see what kind of response he did get. Yeah, I know with Tony I think the things that stood out were his ability to write well and that's definitely helpful when you're doing a lot of paperwork and pleadings. Well communication, that's always key to almost any profession. That's good. I remember one of the questions I was asked or one of the tests I was given was, you know, adding up a long line of numbers. Like the phone book. Well it was a big long line and they wanted to know if you could do it without looking. And so the question is, you know, add up these numbers and tell me what it is. Back in the old days to pass the test. The CPA test, which you couldn't use a calculator back in the old days. No, you weren't allowed to use it. It was all longhand. But the answer was, what do you want it to be? What total are you looking for? Right, right. Now that would have passed before, but now that gets you in jail. So you can't do that anymore. But yeah, there's always little trick questions that are thrown at you. Did you have any? Do you have any experience with a trick question somebody may have asked? No, sorry. Nothing that you're willing to disco. I think that is actually the more accurate answer. No, but the interviewing process is always fun and it's always very intimidating. You know, you get some younger people. Now you were fortunate because you had a few years under your belt. But there's some young people that graduate from law school and sometimes going through the interviewing process can be an intimidating process. Any thoughts and advice on how a young professional just getting into law school might approach that process? I think a couple of things that I would say is, number one, do your homework about where you want to work, if it's in a law firm, something medium or large sized, or if it's with a solo practitioner, or if you want to work with the government, for example. So think about what you want to do, do your research, and then really focus on making sure there's a good fit. And in my experience, that really means a lot. And I'm speaking from what I've heard people in hiring positions say. So sometimes it's not so much about grades or it's not about maybe other things you've done. It's about how well you fit with the people that you'll be working with 12 hours a day. And that fit is very important because you want people to be able to hit the ground running. You don't want to spend a lot of time retraining or reorienting. You want people to come in with the skill sets you're looking for so they can be put to work right away. Sorry, but they need to start generating revenue too. It's a business, so that's good. And it's always good to know, I guess, when you're talking to a firm or a company, a little bit about them so you can determine from the outset where that fit might be. That's good. Now, the same can be said for a business looking to get legal support, legal help from a firm. Is it the same type of research needs to be done? Yeah, I think with respect to a business, you have a multitude of different types of businesses. I mean, you have the very sophisticated businesses who would have an in-house counsel who would have great familiarity with the different law firms in town and lawyers and their expertise and areas of practice. Those are the... you have to be on your toes to pass scrutiny in order to get into the door for a potential talk story to see whether or not it's a good fit. And you're going to be competing with other attorneys in town who are known to be the tops in that area of expertise. And that's a dog-and-pony show. And then at the opposite end of the spectrum are just ordinary people with their ordinary problems that need an attorney. And a lot of times those are situations where it's a friend or a relative or a friend of a friend and they just come to you and say, hey, I got this issue where my neighbor and I are having a dispute about the fence. And we do. And you have a wide spectrum and all different kinds of problems in between. And I guess sometimes it's surprising how easily these things can be resolved. Maybe just a quick phone call and things can be addressed. And they just don't... so many people are adverse to any type of confrontation. And it gets interesting. Do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely right. When Tony gets involved, it's typically when things have gone south. And so the two parties had an agreement. And they both contractually are bound by this agreement. But one party disagrees with what they should or should not be doing under the agreement. And now you have a dispute. And oftentimes instead of sitting down and trying to work things through or maybe they've tried that and it hasn't worked, then one party decides to file a lawsuit against the other. And I think in today's world of Internet accessibility and to be able to go online and research, there's an awful lot of templates out there that people can use. But they need to be customized to local laws and rules and regulations. I mean, just because somebody goes out and downloads a contract for something. I mean, doesn't it make sense to have an attorney take a look at that to make sure that it's a good contract, that it can be enforced? I can't tell you how many times people have come to me saying, oh, I want to save money on legal fees, so I've done the drafting myself. And I'm very frank with them saying, well, it's going to cost me more to revise your agreement to make it comport with Hawaii law than to just take one of our own forms and use that. Right. No, that makes sense. And I have similar experience in the tax world doing a tax return. It would be easier for me to just process the information and do the tax return rather than take something that had already been done and try to review it to see if it was done correctly. Most of the time I have to reprocess it anyways. And I would imagine that a template contract would be very similar. I mean, you already know what compliance is or what it should be, and you've already got that built into the system. It's easy to try it out. So we shouldn't use turbo tax then? Oh, hell no. No. Actually, for low-end stuff, it's okay. But I think once you file the return, it's okay. But going to a court to handle a potential dispute, I think it's much more important to have a professional involved. Right from the get-go. I mean, don't wait until it becomes a problem. It's better to make sure it's clean before you get to that point. Yeah, the sad thing is this happens quite a bit where a client will come to me and say, ah, Matt, I got this problem. I'm saying, I asked him, well, where's the agreement? And well, we just shook hands on it. And I said, oh, you do have a problem. If you had come to see me earlier and spent a little bit of money up front having a sound agreement, then you would save a lot of money on the back end. Sure. And a lot of heartache and... Yes. I mean, it can be very stressful. Yes. I've been an expert witness before, and I had to prepare and get ready for appearance. Fortunately, never had to appear. It was always settled before, which was good. It means our preparation was solid. But it's stressful. It's stressful for the people that's going to be there. It's stressful for the clients. Trying to avoid that is probably just having good contracts up front. Yes, absolutely. Very good. Tony, getting back to you a little bit. Can you describe the type of practice you're building over there? You've been there a year and a half, and you're supporting others there, but you're kind of developing your own? Yes. And so most of the work I do, again, revolves around real estate. And again, that's sort of the focus of the firm, broadly speaking. And I do... Currently, I do a breach of contract cases regarding the conveyance of property or real estate. I do summary possession, what we call summary possession actions, which are normally called evictions. I do mostly plaintive sides, so I represent landlords in landlord-tenant disputes, almost without exception, corporate. We're not talking about personal landlord-tenant disputes, but corporate landlord-tenant. And then I'm working on what are called quiet title matters, where a landlord wants to clean up title. For example, where you go back in time and look at the chain of title, where we would say it's cloudy, and then you work with the court and correct those things. So those are generally where I'm working right now. Very good. We've got a couple of minutes left. And occasionally, I'll get involved in something. A client will ask me to get involved. And without going into a lot of details, sometimes there'll be a person that has a contract to have something installed. And for one reason or another, they decide they don't want to do it. In order to get out of a contractual arrangement like that, where they may have already made a deposit, they've got things done, but no work's been started. What's the best way to approach something like this to cancel that contract? Does it make sense to just get on the phone and talk to the contractor and say, I've changed my mind, give me back my deposit? Because they've got a contract there that can be enforced. Or is it best to have an attorney kind of take a look at it and kind of look at the different clauses that might be there for termination? Any thoughts on that? I think it depends on your relationship with the contractor and what the reasons are for wanting to get out of it. But in my experience, if you have a reasonable person sitting on the other side of the table, which isn't always the case, just talk to them and say, hey, the situation has changed. How do you feel about cancelling this agreement? Especially if the economy's strong, the contractor's got 100 other jobs to do. That's true. And if it's a consumer and it's a consumer protection issue, the next step is to maybe talk to the office of consumer protection and say, hey, this is the situation I'm in now. Do you think there's a chance that I can get out of this contract? And then finally, maybe go see an attorney and see what the attorney can do to help you with your problem. Refreshing response, because you don't have to just jump right into the attorney approach. I mean, you can try to get it resolved, you know, depending upon that relationship. So that's great advice. Very good. Well, we're wrapping up. Really appreciate you both being on the show. It was very interesting to hear, you know, how you started your career. And then as they say, you pivoted and went in another direction and did it quite successfully. So congratulations. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Very good. Well, Matt, always good to have you on the show. Thank you very much. I look forward to the next one. My pleasure. So we'll see you in a few months. Thank you very much, Rich. Thank you. This is Business in Hawaii with Rich Baker. We're here today talking about law practice in Hawaii and one of the premier firms and two of their associates. They work with them. We've got some good advice. We're looking forward to seeing you again next week. Until then, aloha.