 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Welcome and aloha to all our friends. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we will go across the sea between Hawaii and Japan and talk about friendship among lawyers. You may ask yourself, can lawyers be friends with each other? Can lawyers from across the sea, from different cultures and different legal systems, be friends with each other? Can bar associations from different countries be friends with each other? My guest today is Shimpei Oke and he is going to answer those questions for us. Mr. Oke is a lawyer practicing with the Hawaii law firm of Goodsill, Anderson Quinn and Stifle. In 2005, the Hawaii State Bar Association and the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association entered into a friendship agreement and the lawyers from each bar association have been going back and forth across the sea holding biennial meetings either in Tokyo or Honolulu ever since. Mr. Oke recently chaired the 2018 friendship meeting between the Hawaii State Bar Association and the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association here in Hawaii. Welcome my friend. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Thank you very much. Can I call you Shimpei? Yes please do Mark. We are Tomodachi. Yes we are. So we are friends. We are friends for quite some time now I believe. So first of all before we go into friendship agreements and everything like that I want you to tell me a little bit about yourself so we can figure out how you how you got to be the chair of the 2018 friendship meeting between the two bar associations. Of course. Tell me a little bit about your background. Of course thank you Mark. Yes I was as you introduced I was born and raised in Japan to Japanese parents who don't speak a word of English. I attended a international school in Japan so how although I was brought up in a Japanese household I was educated in a U.S. curriculum and it was a very natural for us for the graduates of international students international school students to move on to colleges in the United States Europe Canada Australia some choose to stay in Japan what I did was I decided to proceed with my college education in the United States where I attended a university in St. Louis Missouri. Okay say no wait a St. Louis Missouri how did you ever figure that you're gonna go there from Tokyo? Well that's a that's a very long story but to to keep it short it was I was thankfully accepted to university of one of my choices and just happens to be in St. Louis. It provided the curriculum that I was looking for and and the the the one issue that I had in mind when I was choosing colleges is I wanted to be someplace that's very different from where I well sure so and in fact it was very different frigid winters and very hot summers very little Asians very little Japanese so those things are all a mix of the reasons why I decided to attend college in St. Louis Missouri. Okay and so you were speaking Japanese at home yes you're going to international school in Tokyo speaking English yes I guess right yes and so you're learning both languages how did you get to the I mean how did your parents send you to the international school? Well you know it's it's that's a that's somewhat of a mystery to me too but what I suspect is that 30 years ago what they my parents took a gamble to just they I guess they they thought that 30 years from that time English would be a critical aspect of being able to survive in this global wow global economy. Pretty good foresight. I'm very thankful now but I did have to study Japanese as an extracurricular activity which seems a little odd but reading and writing is an important aspect of language also not just speaking so that was that was what we did so you grew up doing both both languages and you ultimately came to Hawaii went to law school here yes I did so after I graduated University in St. Louis I was on a student visa and when you graduate on a student after a student visa you're afforded a 12-month period of optional practical training where the where international students and afforded an opportunity to get practical work experience in the United States and I wanted to take advantage of that 12-month period because I thought once I go back to Japan I would go back permanently I wouldn't have the opportunity to work in the United States at that time my brother my older brother happened to be living in Hawaii and I just decided maybe it would be fun to just live with him for a couple of months and decided to come to Hawaii met some people here who recommended law school could be fun if I didn't go back to Japan I applied got in and been here since yeah and and so your background kind of a combination Japanese I guess American and now you're a lawyer here at Goodsell and does that that the type of practice you have that you bring all those things together yes unfortunately I am I am in in an industry where and a location Hawaii is very friendly to Japanese investors Japanese businesses and and very much today Japan remains very much interested in Hawaii and my work involves assisting Japanese companies and the individual Japanese investors trying to to to do something in Hawaii be it start a business by real estate now all sorts of things so I am in thankfully in a very interesting area of being able to help Japanese clients do things in Hawaii okay well all right well let's talk now about friendship agreements I know something about them I've been involved since the beginning of these friendship agreements but I want to learn a little bit about your experience with them and tell us what is a friendship agreement I mean what what what does it do no from my limited experience and involvement with friendship agreements I mean I it's it's a great opportunities for two bar associations to get together learn about each other just really make friends and as a professional at one level it's a great networking opportunity because you get to meet lawyers from other countries and you become friends with them and at a at a higher level it really is an opportunity for the people involved to to just learn about how different countries practice law and how from the simple things like how a bar bar association is organized to the complexities of how they deal with foreign clients these things are things that you can learn firsthand from being involved in a friendship agreement and the friendship agreement gives you a excuse for you to meet people and talk to people about the things that you're interested in it's like a vehicle it does yes okay good good good I think that's perfect way to describe it and and now we have lawyers in Hawaii and we have lawyers in Japan and our agreement was with a Tokyo Bar Association Daichi Tokyo what what what basically we how many lawyers do we have in Hawaii how many in Japan and what's what what's the differences between the practice of law okay and I did do a little bit of homework so I have I have a little bit of information about that my understanding is as of 2017 the Hawaii State Bar Association has approximately 8,000 members 7,991 of which 4,931 are active well compare that to Japan Japan has approximately 40,000 attorneys and of course this is the entire country country but when you look at the Tokyo Bar Association's and and I can provide a little bit of information about how the Tokyo Bar Association is set up but in Tokyo of the 40,000 I believe 18,243 are based in Tokyo okay all right and we and in Hawaii we have one bar association yes now in Tokyo there's three bar association what's that about there's three bar associations and I don't know what the story behind that is but what I've been told from the Japan attorneys because that's something that we're all curious about why does is it just a sheer number of attorneys that they have or what I understand is historically when the lawyer licensing system in Japan was established the three bar associations in Tokyo existed and what happened was after it pre-existed the the what is currently known as the federal bar association in Japan so what happened was when the federal bar association in Japan was created it created bar associations each of the 50 district but Tokyo already had three bar associations existing at the time so it just carried on from what it had okay so that makes sense well it's it's a cultural thing perhaps and are they in competition are they do you how do you know which bar bar to choose from is there any any way to figure that out no I what is what one attorney in Japan told me is the bar association in Tokyo that they would join is completely determined upon which bar association your boss is in so even within the same law firm you could have people in different bar associations so there is the Tokyo bar association the Daiichi Tokyo bar association which we have the relationship with and the Daini Tokyo bar association okay but what does Daiichi mean Daiichi means number one or yeah not in terms of rank but you know number one like the first one the first one I guess the first first one Daini would mean the second one and the Tokyo bar association doesn't have any numbers okay okay all right so we have a relationship with the Hawaii state bar association and the Daiichi Tokyo bar association have a relationship a friendship agreement okay and I know that it started a few quite a few years ago when we started to think about going outside of Hawaii and making relationships I think as you said that would help develop social and professional contacts and networking so that's what happened and has that been your experience I mean your personal experience how long how long have you been involved with the friendship agreements and what has been your experience with them so I was licensed in Hawaii practiced in 2010 and as you previously noted this friendship agreement with the Daiichi Tokyo bar association had been established in 2005 so I was very fortunate to be able to come out come in as a practicing attorney when this relationship already existed of course your background makes it fit worked very well for me yes and the first time I was actively involved with this relationship with the Daiichi Tokyo bar association was fairly recently it was back in 2016 when we had the we as in the HSBA had it was our turn to visit the Daiichi Tokyo bar association in Japan and with that I got involved in the planning of it and my language ability was it was of some use because we did have to coordinate the events with the Daiichi bar association members and and that's how I started and and how did you get grabbed to become the chairman of the the latest meeting the the latest friendship meeting well mark you're you're very kind to to to to note me as a chair but this very much was a collective effort among everybody that was involved mark is you well know you were very very much involved from the beginning and in the organization of this year's event but how it happened to be that I got actively more actively involved than before was it's just the language abilities the the the planning of it and you know discussing the details with the Daiichi folks it just helps to be able to communicate in Japanese and I think it's a way for the the the Hawaii state bar associations to show and it's at one level some respect to be able to to communicate with them in Japanese and be able to organize in the in a way that they feel comfortable doing and one thing you mentioned was that this was a group effort okay and I want to talk a little bit about that after the break and also I want to go through some photos of our last meeting here in in Honolulu after the break we're going to take a short break and then come back sounds right okay talking about friendship agreements with Shinpei Oki Hawaii lawyer with good Sal Anderson Quinn and Stifle and Shinpei you mentioned before our break that we had a group effort to put together uh the latest meeting between the two bar associations the Daiichi Tokyo bar Hawaii state bar now that tells me something group effort that means friendship yes so who were the friends I mean they were from all over town or who was involved just generally just generally well well you were involved specifically um but uh we had the support of the international law section of the Hawaii state bar association shared by Rex Fujichaku um he has been of course tremendously helpful in in getting things going in terms of planning communicating with the bar association um getting the venues and and uh yeah we had local attorneys involved as speakers we had local businesses involved as sponsors we had local attorneys involved as the planners so we had and not just from one firm but from all over oh not just from one firm we really had from all over we had private practitioners we have members from larger firms we have uh yeah we was it was really a whole mix of of of different attorneys involved in the planning and through the planning process I had the opportunity to meet with a lot of new different Hawaii folks as well and make some friends it makes them very good friends yes now uh when the Daiichi Tokyo bar came here we had a lot of activities I want to go through first set of photos sure maybe tell us with each one what what's going on with these activities of the Daiichi Tokyo bar association okay let's let's see if we can get the first set of photos up okay okay so this is a photo from the actual seminar that we had um we had speakers from the now Denton firm we had Glenn Melchinger and Dick Mosher and we had we had two speakers from Daiichi uh let me get their names so I don't get them so Mr. Tezuka Hiroyuki and Mr. Yoshiro Takatori and the topic of the conference uh the seminar was international ADR and that was the seminar that they had with both bar associations here in Honolulu that's correct up at the bar headquarters okay that's correct yes next one this is a photo from our welcome reception which was graciously hosted by the residents of Rich and Ray Turbin this is a photo of the president of the Tokyo bar right in the middle there Daiichi Tokyo bar station in the middle and of course everyone would recognize Justice McKenna and the fluent speaker who is born in Japan born in Japan fluent Japanese speaker we have Professor Levinson and a couple of law students who were able to get involved as well yeah and that's a good point I mean some of the law students from UH law school got involved and made contacts and made some friends with bar bar members from both bars okay let's go to the next photo this is a photo from our farewell reception which was hosted by the Daiichi Tokyo bar association we did it at Cafe Julia downtown and uh yeah it was a nice get together at the end of the program where where we got to sit talk and enjoy entertainment okay we have a couple more yeah okay and this is the entertainment that that was provided by Louise Ng of the Denton firm her Hula group came out to perform for us and so there is Louise Ng a practicing attorney doing the Hula yes former president of Hawaii State Bar Association and doing a really nice job yes it was fantastic okay next and to the farewell reception just this wrecked and walled was kind enough to drop by to give a few words and this is him giving a quick quick uh speech to uh the attendees the CJ okay next this is a photo form we do among not we're just not here to to study we are here to have fun as well and in the spirit of making friends uh we had a golf get together with the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association members and uh this is a photo from their round of I think this is right after the round of golf right it's so and yeah so that's an important part is is to blend the social activities along with uh professional activities and the networking and we put on a seminar and and so you everybody gets to know each other on different levels which I think is a cultural thing too right I agree yeah yeah it's it's very much true all right is is there words are okay oh so this is a photo again from the welcome reception and we see you and Rex Fuji-chan the president of the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association every year or not every year when we have these events the two bar associations have a tradition of exchanging gifts and that photo which mark you had a you played a critical role in in in deciding what to to to provide um is a photo from a local photographer Matt quark yeah and and it's a of Kilauea I mean talk about time timing right perfect yes the beautiful photo which we presented to Daiichi as our gift from HSBA very nice next and that is a gift provided by the Daiichi Bar Association to HSBA I think it is displayed at the HSBA office today okay all right and this is a photo and one of the activities that the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association gets involved with is the tour of the Supreme Court of course mean which Justice McKenna allows us to make happen and and by chance the India Supreme Court justices were visiting at the same time and this is a photo with them and so we made some more friends I think they did yes from India as well yes that's interesting that's fun yes and this final photo is a good photo of the attendees from the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association okay all right well now so uh is there anything about these meetings that are culturally significant or related to either Japan or Hawaii cultures no it's I would I think so I mean this is an opportunity for just lawyers to talk frankly not on a transaction or not on adverse basis but we're just here to talk and being able to do so allows us to exchange ideas with other lawyers from other countries and I mean who are in fact interested in Hawaii we're interested in Japan and the people from Daiichi are interested in Hawaii so it provides a good opportunity it's just a good vehicle as you mentioned for for these things to be discussed and it's just a fun discussion that we have and and because the issues we discuss involve both countries we both have something to share we both have something to contribute and and I think it's helpful that we talk to each other too from different cultures and get to know each other and maybe help avoid problems hopefully in the future or help us get through problems talking yeah no I absolutely agree and and the topic this year at our seminar was cross-border ADR and and one of the the discussion was you know how can we both get involved in in in doing resolving disputes and and where it would be a good place to do it how we should do it these are all things that would not have been discussed unless this event had happened and we went to Hawaii State Bar Association went to Tokyo a couple years ago right when it was our turn to go yes and so we we do have some photos of that trip yes and I'd like to go through some of those photos and kind of explain who who is in the photos sometimes and and what happened in in Tokyo and then tell us when the next trip is for the Hawaii State Bar okay so let's let's take a look okay so this is a photo this is a conference room at the Morse and Forrester Tokyo office where we have Craig Wagner at the top giving a presentation and as part of our trip to Japan what we included was a CLE session for the Hawaii attorneys who are practicing in Japan to get credit get credit yeah so that was that one of the events that we had and this is a photo from that conference because and in the Hawaii State Bar you have to get so many credits every year and this gives those lawyers a chance to get it right that in person that's right yeah thank you for that yeah okay and this is a group photo of HSBA members at the Japan Supreme Court we had the opportunity to as as part of our tour we arranged different educational trips as well and and we did have an opportunity to meet with one of the justices in chambers where no photos were allowed unfortunately but in one of the hearings room we were able to take a photo and this is a this is supreme court of Japan room where they hear cases that's correct yes next this is a photo from the background you can see it's a it's a photo of the joint seminar which was in Japan upfront it's kind of small but you see the speakers up there from HSBA and the speakers from Daichi and that's in the Daichi Tokyo Bar Association this was in the the the Tokyo I think I don't know who owns that building but the Bar Association in Tokyo I think collectively owns an entire building and it's from the it is in in in one of the seminar rooms from from their building and the topic this was back in 2016 was cross-border estate planning okay and that's a photo of again our our chair of the international law section of the HSB's HSBA Rex Fuji Chakaland I believe that's the the former president of the Daichi Tokyo Bar Association okay next of course we always have fun as well and this is one of the nomikais or get-togethers we had at one of the izakayas on your Tokyo station we see a a group of we see you and your wife and members from the Daichi Tokyo Bar we also have an attorney from New York yeah now let that's that's how this thing has spread because because the one in Tokyo we had a lawyer from New York that's that's the fellow right on the on the right hand side as I'm looking at it Richard Goldstein and we also had a lawyer from France that's right who both both of them wanted to become part of that uh Hawaii Bar trip to the Daichi Tokyo friendship right meeting and so they they joined us right we kind of it spread out beyond just Hawaii and Tokyo yes it's not every day that they get to mingle in this fashion with Japanese attorneys and and this was a good opportunity for them to just just jump in on the bandwagon and so that helps uh networking opportunities yes absolutely okay yes and this is a group photo of of all members from HSBA and Daichi Tokyo Bar attended the seminar in 2016 okay nice group not quite a bit of us yeah okay so when is the next time for Hawaii State Bar Association to go to Tokyo how do uh lawyers get involved and do you have to be a lawyer to be involved no uh the the next round of of meetings is going to happen in 2020 in Tokyo Olympic year very exciting I think we're going to avoid the summertime though yeah yeah we won't go to the Olympics right and of course uh anyone can involve to get involved at that at any level the seminars are usually tailored towards attorneys as this is an organization between uh two two bar associations but we get we we need sponsors we we we provide gifts to the bar associations and there's there's ways that people can get involved in terms of sponsorship or or support or whether they want to just come to Japan and not attend the seminar but just attend the other social activities when we had the event in Japan we had non-lawyers be present at the social events because they wanted to make network they wanted to meet attorneys so a Hawaii business might want to make some contacts in Japan or provide some sort of service to Japanese Bengoshi lawyers and uh this is a good opportunity it would be yes I would think so so if I'm a Hawaii lawyer who should I contact uh about the next uh next meeting well you can contact mark or you can contact me uh and you are rex of course you can always contact the head of the international law section yes and of course if if rex may not be chairing the international law section if you contact the international law section they are the the the the the central organization in allowing us to make this event happen okay chimpeh thank you for talking about friendship across the sea and uh friendship agreement we have between the hawaii state bar and the daichi tokyo bar association and i'm looking forward to the next the next time we all get together with the daichi tokyo well mark thank you for having me absolutely arigato arigatou all right thank you very much