 Life in the law. Life in the law is more complicated now. It may seem easier, you know, because we're all at home and we're doing social distancing, but in fact it's more difficult. This is Life in the Law. I'm Jay Fiedel and the handsome fellow who joins me is Greg Frye and he is the president of the HSBA, which is the Hawaii State Bar Association. Welcome to the show, Greg. It's always a joy to spend some time with you, Jay, so I thank you. I thank Think Tech Hawaii. I wish happy boys' day and happy Cinco de Mayo and happy years appreciation day. Everybody out there may fit as a busy day. Thanks for having me. It means a lot. Sir, well, I mean, I want people to understand who you are and how you got to where you are, you know, let's have a picture of Greg on the cover of the bar journal. Let's see. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's Greg. He's the president. I'm not kidding. See, look, and I want to know how you got to that spot, you know, not many lawyers have gotten to that spot. And what did you do in your life that took you down the path to become the president of the Bar Association? Boy, that's a thoughtful question, Jay. Thank you. I know we have a lot of other really important things to talk about, but we go back a long way and it means a lot. I think from DNA moving forward, I was always wanting to be philanthropic and a bit volunteer in everything I decided to do, no matter how busy I might have been personally or professionally. So I spent a lot of time on a lot of boards, literally for the last 30 to 35 years, including a long stint on the HSBA board many years ago. And then as time passed as I left the board for a period of time, I was approached by lots of folks like you three dot lawyers and others with tons of experience who asked me to consider strongly coming back to the board, which I decided to do was fortunate enough to win an election and it's never easy when you're dealing with all lawyers that make that decision but I was humbled by it. And I guess I'm most humbled for two reasons and then we'll move on and thank you for the question. I am a third generation attorney and it means something to me. It means a lot to me. And in fact that picture you showed if you read the article I speak to that, I think quite a bit. And secondly, I'm the first exclusive if you will family law practitioner ever to be elected the president of the state bar and because I've devoted my time to family law, that means an awful lot to me. I appreciate you asking the question. Well, I knew your father, Greenstein Cow and Fry wasn't it years ago years ago. It was it was absolutely was was Hyman Greenstein and you might remember the letterhead was in embossed green and every time he signed a pleading. He signed it in green it was rejected and then he signed it in black and sent it back. Because in those days, you had assigned everything in black. I'm not sure it's the same today. I don't think so. Greenstein wore a green tie and a white coat white suit and drove the green cars I remember it was really a character. He was quite a animated living legend, if you will. Yeah. Anyway, so I wanted to talk to you about about COVID but I also want to talk to you about the interaction of COVID and and being a lawyer, the bar association, for example, and legal institutions that really govern the way our, our community our society work. So I guess I you know what I would I would ask you about how COVID has affected your job. I mean this is you know you didn't know about COVID when you took the job. How has it affected your job as the president of the Hawaii State Bar Association. I was talking with the Chief Justice the other day and I said how odd that one of the things I had said again in that article of what I wanted to do moving forward into one short year that you spend at the top if you wanted to enhance and I wanted to further picture frame the absolute, almost in biblical court connection between the Hawaii State Bar Association and the Supreme Court relative to so many tasks that the Supreme Court is the final authority on however they are quite frankly metered out and dealt with on a daily basis with HSBA and what happened. We've been more connected since this virus hit us all than we probably ever really wanted to or certainly more than I thought we were going to in that I spend to your question and an inordinate amount of time in remote conferences much like we're doing right now with dozens and dozens of people trying to figure out how we're going to conduct our professional lives on behalf of Hawaii's people who need us, whether it be from the side or the practitioner side when we have to deal with the restrictions governmentally placed now because of the virus. Well, let's talk about that. You know, so I'm an ordinary fellow in the street. And you tell me that I need you. Why do I need you? Why, you know, a bunch of lawyers is what you are. Why do I need you to make my life tolerable? Why do I need you to get along in the time of crisis? You know, Jay, that's probably a fundamental question that goes farther back and for decades back than simply this virus. I think it goes back to Shakespeare. Our lawyers are lawyers really necessary. And here's what I'd like to say, whether we were in COVID or not, whenever somebody comes into my office and says, Can I do this myself? I'm always going to be transparent. I'm always going to be honest. And I'm going to say, Hey, what do you do for a living? And he might say or she might say I'm a plumber. And I'll say, Well, gosh, you know, I could probably turn a wrench on a pipe or two. And I might be able to do a little bit of self help on in the plumbing world and I might think for a couple of days or even a week. I'm doing a solid job. I'm not doing bad. And then the leaks will start coming and then the panic was set in a bit. And then I'll be I'll be in over my head. So that may happen to you in the law. Yes, you can get started. Yes, you can get through it. There will come a time probably that maybe what I know will be very helpful to you. You make that decision. So now let's fast forward to COVID. It's more difficult to deal with attorneys now because of the restrictions in place. But I still think even if there are layers of remote ism, if that were a word between lawyer client court, or other aspects of the law that a lawyer still needed by people. Well, let me ask you this, it just comes to mind. You know, they say that COVID is not over. We have many legs to go before we're out of it. If we're ever completely out of it. And it is changing things. When we come out of it or we come to the other side, however that is, we're going to find that our lives in our society are all different. And my question to you, this is not easy. I hope you're sitting down for this one. How, how, how is the profession going to be different? How is the role of the lawyer and the bar association for that matter of the courts? How, how are those things going to be changed when we come out the other side? There's a couple of things that I wonder and I'm sure you do as well and so many of us do as you sit where you sit and I sit where I sit. And we talk a little bit before we got started on this great show. And it's not the same. I'd much rather be sitting with you and experiencing our friendship closer, our professional passions closer. But to your question, it's never going to happen as we knew it going forward, perhaps beyond our workable days. You and I might, in fact, be retired before it gets back to something that might approach what you and I and many other, in fact, everybody knew only a few months ago. By that, I mean, we're going to have to, and I'm seeing it on several committees I'm sitting on now with regard to the court and the HSBA. We're going to have to come to graphs to something that is far more normal and easy and relaxed to you and the IT genius folks at Think Tech Hawaii than to the average attorney who has spent his or her life in front of somebody persuading, not in front of a camera, not in front of an audio, we will be living with the remote delivery of legal services for quite some time and perhaps for several years. Yeah. Is the quality of justice different that way? Certainly as I'm trying to learn the difference so quickly and I'm in my infancy on it, I'd have to tell you 100% as a litigator that the delivery has got to be less impactful. I'm not standing within a few feet of the people I need to persuade. I'm layers away. Does that mean my message is any less important? I don't think so. Does that mean that I can't get my point across? I hope not. But I worry about that as I go forward, learning this remote process. There's something to be said for the humanity of it. For example, you have a witness and in the family practices in all of litigation, witnesses, I hope you're sitting down for this one, witnesses don't always, they don't always tell the truth. They simply do not always tell the truth. And the lawyer has to see that and he has to demonstrate exactly how truthful this particular witness is being to a judge or a jury. And those things are fundamental in English law and in American law and maybe law of the world wide. And so how can you do, can you do that the same way? You know, it's the roar of the grease paint and the smell of the crowd to actually see the beads of sweat and all that stuff. You know, it's just not the same. And if I may, Greg, I want to tell you a story. One of my first cases. I was, I was trying to defend somebody who another lawyer and he was, he was a solar practitioner, Howley Guy, and I want to say his first name I remember to be Sam, his last name I think was something like lands. Sam Landsman was the representing the plaintiff in the case. And so he said, Hey, why don't you come down to my office and we'll settle this matter. So I went to his office and it was in the old Hawaii, Hawaii Corporation building, you know, on Bishop Street, and I sat in his office. And what do you want to pay? What do you want to pay? This, you know, it might have been a $500 case, you know, and those days was more, more money. And I said, I want to pay $300. And Sam looked at me and our faces were two feet apart in this little tiny office he had practicing by himself. And he said, Okay. You know, it's sort of interesting, because there grew a bond between us that was based on, you know, what do you want to call it the proximity of that discussion. The mono imano of that discussion. I never forget that. And there have been many, you know, circumstances just like that that I have used to have in my career, where I appreciated the humanity of it. Query whether you can have the humanity. If you never, I mean, never actually met the person on the other side. You know, there's that old saying, Jay. And you'll see it a lot kind of when you were speaking of passion and pulse. When a couple of practitioners on behalf of their clients that just can't get it together on their own when the practitioners get together, and they look eyeball to eyeball and one says to the other, let's talk turkey right. Let's just get this done. Right. I don't know how close to the turkey you and I can get when we are separated by technology. Nothing wrong with technology. Don't get me wrong. It's wonderful. I do get to spend a few minutes with you even though I haven't seen you in a while because we have to do what we have to do. It's just not the same. And I'm not sure in my practice, I'm speaking of one practice. And I think lawyers, regardless of their emphasis or their specialty might agree in certain respects. Clients, I think, thrive from and work off of the passion and the push and the direction of his or her lawyer, which is best gauged in one on one discussion and dealings. It's a little harder by the telephone. It's a little harder even in video. But I think, Jay, that that's where we have to learn to adapt and realize that for the immediate future and the court is recognizing that fully and deciding how they're going to bring back jury trials in the age of COVID, how they're going to bring back all trials, whether they be judge based or jury based in the age of COVID, recognizing that in fact much of it for the time being is going to be remote and even when it isn't. There's going to be physical distances, even between the jurors on a jury trial, let alone the rest of the people in the courtroom. Yeah, but I want to go to something else. And we're talking about this before the show began. It's the rule of law in our country, the rule of law under this administration, the balance of powers, what we all studied in law school and well in high school, maybe junior high school about the three branches of government and the essential mechanism that the Constitution and the founders set up. Serious problems now about the rule of law, serious problems about the balance of powers. And this administration has blown that off in so many ways and the appointees and the federal bench of actually there's been a number of articles recently about how they blown away blown off the rule of law and the balance of power. And so, you know, who does it fall on. You can write to the bar associations and some will respond and others will not. You can write to the attorneys general in the various states. Some will respond to this issue, and we have had that here. And some will not. Things have been politicized among attorneys general and about bar associations at various states and the American bar association. The, the whole industry profession is under the same attack, if you will, as the Congress and the courts. And so, in my view, it falls upon the individual licensed practicing lawyer, whether he practices for, you know, private practice or possibly government or those these days it's difficult to ask somebody in government to take, take the reins on this. But query, you know, hasn't the burden of protecting the rule of law, defending American democracy hasn't fallen upon the individual lawyer practitioner as never before, not in our lifetimes and not for a long time before. And maybe coven, which calls for a reinvention of everything, including the practice of law reveals this necessity. What are your thoughts on that possibility. Now, as you were talking about really learned stuff, very high and thought provoking issues that are, and will always be essential, not only to we as practitioners, we as advocates for people who need a position. We need protection, need guidance and counsel. I have to be honest, Jay. I want to tell you that the part that I honed in on the most was maybe coven, which has changed our practice is going to be an impetus a, a kick in the old collage to look at this more critically. The first thing I thought after I thought in my mind, he's right. The next thing I thought is, and I'll get to that after I saved my law practice, and I get through this disaster. I'm being honest when I tell you that part of this coven uniqueness has created financial and business obstacles that are also quite frankly, at least in my lifetime, if not everybody who's working today, regardless of his or her age. The first time we've ever had to deal with this, I just today signed the PPP loan for my office to bring back hopefully lots of people I had to let go by way of cost and expense containment. So while I'm getting off of the track, I'm really not because I think what I'm trying to say is never will the very critical issues leave our minds, but maybe they got to be pushed to the left or right for a few minutes as we figure out whether we're even going to be here tomorrow. I'm being dramatic to illustrate a point. Be here tomorrow to help the people advance the rule of law protections and other things that might have recently so radically changed from what you and I might remember in yesteryear. Yeah, you're, I think that I so totally agree. It is also a question of priorities and it's for example, you know, it's the airplane oxygen mask, but they tell you don't put the oxygen mask on your child's face, put it on your face first. So you can handle your child, and then you'll be in a position where you can take care of your child. If you do it the other way other priorities, you and your child are both at risk. And it's the same thing with the law firm. You need to perform your, what I'm going to call it, professional, moral, ethical duty in the community, but you have to exist for that. And you can't do it nearly as well if your law firm is under financial pressure and cannot perform, cannot continue as a law firm. So I totally agree. In fact, your analogy is so critically spot on in my mind, because it's naturally in anybody's reactive, especially in crisis, and in turmoil, which we are experiencing in medical terms, in personal terms, in personal liberty terms, in financial terms across the board right now. It's exactly the reverse of what one would naturally do. To your analogy, you stand in front of a bullet for your child first, and then you worry about yourself, but no, you need to turn it around. Applying it to the saving of a business to be there for the people who need that business. In our case, the practice of law and the advocacy for folks that need our assistance. I might, my first hope and wish might be I'd like to dive into that critical issue and deal with it. Don't worry about the little things like where's the money going to come from in order to keep the doors open in order to keep the lights on in order to keep the people employed. And I also from a fundamental standpoint, Jane, you can appreciate this, having done this for so long. The thought of making decisions that might impact dozens of people that I work with, and have worked for me for decades, and impacting their lives in an adverse way is a lot of pressure that that I don't ever forget. And it probably is the highest part of my priority and keeps me up at night. And it helps you find, it helps you find decency. You know, I think that, you know, in your practice, the practice of matrimonial laws. It reminds me of comments that Jim Duffy made at the bar, the summer bar convention a couple years ago. He said, let's see how it went. The minister heals your soul. The doctor heals your body. And the lawyer, he heals everything else. It's a healing profession. And I think that matrimonial law, you know, you're a healing family, whether it's a fight or not a fight, you're a healing family, you're making the institution of family work. And therefore you are, you know, you're not into destructive things, you're into healing, you're into decency. And so that carries forward to your firm. And my firm for as long as it lived, my firm, my firm merged recently by the way. It was a decent firm. It's principle was decency. I'm not sure every firm is like that, you know, some firms they they forgot that a long time ago, and, and they're into, you know, other things. But I think that I think that what's happening here now with COVID, and with the fact that we're going to have a serious recession, and very likely a depression, one that will have a profound effect on business and, and economics and, and personal finances in this community. It's going to bring us back to that. That's what I think. And the practice of law will will go back to that too. It won't be as much money sloshing around. It'll be a matter of dealing on a human level. And that'd be good for everybody. You know what you think. I think that's, it's a new, a new ethical realization, a new consciousness. And I take you back to one thing before I stop talking and that is today is May 5, Chinko de Mayo. Yesterday was May 4. May 4 was the 50th anniversary of the National Guard shootings at Kent State University. Oh, yeah. And it was those, those kids are activists. And the government was miles away from where they were, could not understand them, saw them as adversaries, and killed them killed American boys in the National Guard killing American students on an American college campus. There was an outrage beyond description. There was a movie on PBS about that. I say to myself, why now 50 years later, should we be so fascinated with what happened with this activism and this tension in the country among young people. And the answer is, I think we're going to a new ethic. I think we're coming into a new time. That's what makes it so interesting. What do you think? I was thinking about when you were talking about a recession leading into a pronounced depression and having to deal with everybody coming back to the starting line. And I thought to myself, especially in our business, Jay, you know that there are so many people that go to law school and come out to practice law for reasons that really aren't the reason to practice law. And here's where I'm going to keep up with the Joneses to be above the norm to have what others don't to show yourself to have made it. What I mean by that to your point that maybe it will be humbling and bring us back. I'm not sure there'll be any Joneses to keep up with in the near future. I think all of us are going to be where we're at and and maybe simpler times and less complex times, simply because truly more people than not are going to say, we don't have enough money, time, energy and effort to do that. And therefore we're going to keep things simple, simple, simple promotes humility. It promotes basic thought and genuine thought. And that's that's how I look at it in trying to be reflective and not frightened and nervous because I'd be not telling you the truth. If I didn't tell you that like everybody else, one of my lawyers said this is like fighting a ghost. And I see that you don't know where the punches are coming from because we've never dealt with this before. You know, but you're on you're on the firing line. You're at the front end of it. That's why the Supreme Court calls on you for advice and counsel and to help in dealing with this this this huge crisis. They couldn't have picked a better guy great because this is going to be the most interesting you're imaginable. You are going to find things that come your way that are completely unpredictable. And I suggest you're going to rise to an extraordinary level of contributed of contributing value to the profession and the community. That's what I say, what do you say, you know, I don't know if I want to necessarily cry a bit in front of your audience but here's what I'll tell you, I was only mentioning to my wife the other day that perhaps I need a little asterisk next to my name and the bar journal going forward where they list every president who has existed since day one if you will. And that asterisk will be much like Mark McGuire when he got into the Hall of Fame and in Major League Baseball that said performance enhanced. Maybe mine will have a I was saying to me on my wife, mine will have a C squared on it and she said what is C squared stand for. And I said, COVID compromised. She said, to your point Jay, and I appreciate what you said thank you from you it means everything. She said Greg never forget. The visibility isn't there as much the people that really make change and the people that really leave a lasting impression are those behind the scenes, far more often than those in front of the camera. And by that she meant and I understood it, that I think I'll go down as an, and a president that really tried, tried to keep the balance, tried to keep the hope, tried to keep the direction, tried to keep the transparency and the clarity and tried to help where we could give direction in what has been a fairly directional list world professionally or otherwise we're living in so I hold on to that hope, and I continue through my year, trying my best to do that. Thank you, Greg. Thank you so much. And thank you for showing up on think tech. I hope I get to talk to you again soon in the flesh, or by remote either way.