 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Welcome to Think Tech, here on a given Tuesday afternoon for the 2 o'clock block, a show that I've been meaning to do for a long time, and so has Vernon been meaning to do it. So this is Life in the Law, I'm Jay Fiedel. Our show today is called Fifty Years Before the Bar, we're going to talk about, well it's a triple entendre somehow, we're going to examine all the various entendres there in Fifty Years Before the Bar. The practice of law can be a lifelong experience, as you will find. And if you want to ask a question, make a comment during the show, you can tweet us at Think Tech H.I. or call us at 808-374-2014. So Vernon Char, welcome to the show, it's so nice to have you here. Thank you. You've been practicing more than 50 years, it's euphemistic to say 50 years. And in comment to that, I think it's, practice of law has been an evolution too. Over time. Indeed. Well, I recall that we had a show, I wasn't the host, somebody else was on Bar Association, and you and John Jubinski came down, I think that was the two of you, this is two, three years ago in the three digit program, the Living Legend Lawyers program we did for the Bar Association. That was a remarkable show, I remember some of the comments you made, I remember some of the comments he made even now. Yeah, it was, I'm really pleased that we did it, John passed away this year, and it was very meaningful in reviewing it with his son and daughter as we were preparing the funeral services for him. And so I'm glad that we did that, but it just shows time passes very quickly and on an impulse, people aren't there anymore. Yeah, isn't that true, time passes so quickly. Well, I want to review some of the things that you've done, and I became aware, for example, well, you're famous, first of all, you were known to me before I ever met you for antitrust, you somehow got involved in antitrust, it's just a very specific expertise here in Hawaii, it's not that much antitrust going on, but here's a lawyer who does antitrust in Hawaii, that is something. And you were representing Aloha Airlines, and that was a family business, I suppose. Right. And you were with Damon, the Damon firm for a while, and then you came over to your own firm, Shara Sakamoto, which still exists today. So you've been around the block for a minute. Thank you. Thank you. And it's just totally fortuitous, I mean, antitrust I think was interesting, I got into being asked to head up the antitrust section for the state, when we, with the state for the first time, had an antitrust application, and it was great, because I didn't take that subject at law school, but it's something that I trained into, and it was quite fortuitous. And then going out in private practice, of course, with the Aloha Airlines suit against Hawaiian Airlines, that was great. Oh, that must have been something that was front page news. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then I became aware of the luncheon group, because you invited me down, you and Ed Chun, and Phil Cheng, and Jeff Grad, and John Jubinski, and maybe there's somebody else there too. You guys met, still meet, I guess, for decades and decades and decades. Right. We calculated that we've had lunch every Wednesday for the last 2,000 weeks. I thought you were going to say 2,000 years. And a new restaurant each time, and, you know, it's unfortunate that John and some of the other founders like Charlie Key and Dwight Rush, Haud Greeley, are not there. But we all started out, again, fortuitously through the Bar Association, and that's how it was founded back in 1963. But you were special friends. You guys shared things that you would not necessarily share outside that group. And you became partners somehow in the practice, in life in the law, you know. Yes. Initially it started, we were all members of the bar. We were doing bar activities. But we contained it to eight people at the outset, all from different firms. And that was so that we could cover what was going on in the law. And besides the collegiality, learned from each other on the various specialties that we had. I remember how spirited the discussion was when I was there. But you invited people to come down. People who were not really part of the essential group come down and you shared with them. And you invited them to tell you about their life experience. That's right. We would have guests, people that we thought could tolerate the aid of us that we strided out with. A real phenomenon. And I was going to say it should be written down, but you did write it down. We're going to cover that. Okay. The next thing I want to talk about is Minoa Forum. Minoa Forum is not really all that well known, but you created Minoa Forum back, it must be 20 years ago, 25 years ago. Right. And that again, it's just fortunate. I'd gone to a bar association, function Aspen Institute when I was in board of governors. And that was held with Supreme Court justices and the board of governors. But I love that concept of having a free exchange and dialogue based on cases or law. And I was able to bring that back to the university. I remember talking to Al Simone, the president, saying, you know, there's something wrong with the university because we don't have this exchange much like you have your think tank today. And so he encouraged me and then he left and then Mortimer came and Ken Mortimer endorsed the idea and we then had Minoa Forum, 10 community, 10 people from the university. Some of the ingredients were that it had to be anonymous. Everybody was a first name, could not discuss what it is that they did, what their roles were. And we would then concentrate and discuss topics like leadership, truth, change. I think the year you and I'm not sure what it was, I know it was identity. We've had a number of subjects. There were great topics and great discussions and it was interesting because everybody was kind of there without portfolio. Yes. You came without wearing your judicial robes or anything and all walks of life, not only from the university but from every part of the community and it was a very unfettered kind of discussion that way. It still goes on. I'm happy to say I think the success of Minoa Forum is a fact that I've resigned from the leadership of that. I do get invited back every year and I think now when it's 23rd or 24th year, run by others in the community and the university, but the concept is still there, taking topics of great human interest and then discussions among anonymous leaders in our community. It's very interesting that there's a program now being organized for December 1st. This is a public program rather than the kind of private program that the Pacific Forum is, Minoa Forum, but this is about the disparity in thinking about people who don't talk to each other, who live in bubbles. Peter Adler, I don't know if you know him, is setting it up with Kim Lourie. Kim Lourie? Yeah, setting it up. They both attended the forum. One thing we found, for instance, I can remember discussing the topic change and we had John Lerner, a physicist. We had someone that I've forgotten who she was, but in the Zen context on teapouring and larynging and things of that nature. We had somebody I think a general in the military, we had a president of a bank and then a disparate of other groups of people and it was amazing that just one single topic change we could get synergies of people thinking without their robes and it was just phenomenal. I think the same was true when we had the topic power. It was just interesting to get a general and a president and a theologian discussing power or an artist and I think to make the general think about what an artist thinks about his power and vice versa, I think it was a real catharsis. I remember great discussions. Great discussions. Yeah. I had a wonderful time and it was two days, it was over a weekend in a hotel, my kiki and food was good and everybody became very familiar with the essence of the discussion, the essence of the people around them. Leaving their titles behind. Leaving the titles behind. I think that was the important thing. But you initiated this idea from afar. I mean, you were not actually part of the university structure, but you had graduated at your age. That's right, but I was president of the Alumni Association. I was one of the founding members when they reinstituted the Alumni Association and it was through that experience about three or four years later, I still had an acquaintance with the president and the deans and so forth, but I felt something was missing at that point. I mean, we had football games and we had tailgate parties, wine tasting, but it lacked the intellectual quality and the university professor kept on saying, we have world class leaders and I said, that may be the case. But we in the community, we don't know them. I may know the law school faculty, but I don't really know, you know, Agihara, the guy that had the cloning or a theologian or a Hawaiian studies person. So that's how it developed. It sounds like it just goes to the whole notion of leadership, community leaders getting together to sort of refine their skills, compare their thinking, come in from the cold, so to speak, and bundle up in a close discussion of issues that affect leaders, that leaders should know about, that leaders should be thinking about, and trying to find out what the other guy had to say. Right. I think that's the important thing is to put themselves into the other person's, well, listening of the person's shoes and getting benefit from that. I think too often leaders, when I was a leader, would talk a point or they would ask a question with already thinking what the response is going to be without listening. And so it was a valuable tool for listening, which I think is important. And the other thing, I think, is because you had this polyglot group, you had people from the community, so effectively you were connecting the university and the community, which is always so important everywhere, but especially here. I think. Yeah. So it's really had a profound effect on those people over the years. I hope so. We've had 400 people plus attending, so that's good, including yourself as a graduate. I thought it was wonderful and nutritious. So the December 1st program about the polarization of the community and all that, it's the same idea. It carries forward or at least runs parallel to what you're doing at Manoa Forum. I mean, it's an outreach. It's trying to get thought leaders together and it's trying to figure out why we are so polarized that we can't make decisions and actually make some of these philosophical decisions out of common ground. I think it's particularly appropriate at this time with our political world situation. So you were ahead of your time in a way by setting this up for an opening. Well, let's talk about your book because I think your book is probably the centerpiece of so much that we could talk about it. You decided at some point to write a book about yourself, about your life, about your family, your studies, your community activities, your practice of law, all of this rolled into the book and you were nice enough to give me a copy and I looked at it and you brought a copy with you now. It's not bound in a standard bound book form, but it is a beautiful book. Can you talk about why you wrote this book about your life? Well, thank you for reading it. It really strutted out from a family situation. And the Chars would have Memorial Day practices like honoring my grandparents, going up to the cemetery and having sacrificial food and so forth. And from that it evolved to getting together with my siblings because I'm one of six, two living away and then all of the nieces and nephews, many of whom are in the mainland, getting together once a year and then talking about my parents. So from that, what evolved was that we would have each of the siblings be this speaker for that one, that annual gathering. It sounds a lot like the Noah forum, doesn't it? But I think I've got some of the ideas from that. So that's what we did. And so finally after six annual sessions, this year was my turn to do the presentation for the siblings, nieces and nephews. And so in preparation of that, I began jotting notes and then that became longer and longer. You wanted to make comments at the meeting of the family and you got started already on the book. Right, right. So the book was really generated for my presentation to the family gathering, which we had in August. Well, I got to say that the book is readable. The book is written in such fine language, really, Vernon. I mean, your training and your experience as a lawyer, I mean, it came to me early in my life that if you could write well, you could do well. Writing, speaking, it's all part of the human experience and it elevates you to do that. And it advances you to do that. And this book is so well written. It's poetry. That's what it is. Thank you. I thank you for that comment. I'm not sure how good the prose is. But I think unlike most of the other autobiographies I've seen, what I wanted to put in here, because this is basically written for my family and my children, is what motivated me, what caused me to do these things. It's not just name rank and serial number or achieve this or acquire that. But how did I build into that? And that was important to me. For instance, as a child, reading my third grade report card where I was viewed as being very catapulted and immature and lack skills. And how that kind of was a spur to do better academically, for instance, over the years. Well, I agree. And we get to meet Vernon at a very early age. The other thing about this book is that it's really quite modest. There's never anything but full modesty in this book. And I really appreciated that. And it's you. Sorry, it's you. You shouldn't be modest, but you are modest. The book didn't have to be modest, but it is modest. It's a statement of modesty from stem to stern. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. That's all I can say. I mean, I feel very humble by having the opportunity to have all these experiences in writing them. But in doing that, I wanted to show that everybody, I remember reading a book from Charlie Kwok. And he said that he was a person of average intelligence and mediocre skills. And I thought, that really fits me because I am there. And even with that being average, I can achieve. And so it's a lesson, I think, for everybody, especially my children, to be able to do the same. You're giving them lessons. This is the book that gives them lessons. Well, I want to talk about some of those lessons when we come back from this break. This is Vernon Sharpe, a lawyer 50 years before the bar, triple entendre. We'll be right back and we'll discuss what's in the book. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha. I'm Vic Kraft, the volunteer host of It Never Got Quiet. Think Tech is important to me because we can bring the issue of Hawaiian veterans of the Vietnam War to the community and tell their story. For the first time, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign to raise $40,000. Give thanks to Think Tech will run only during the month of November, and you can help. Please donate what you can so that Think Tech Hawaii continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like mine. I've already made my donation and look forward to yours. Please send in your tax-deductible contribution by going to this website, www.thanksforthingtech.causebox.com. On behalf of the community enriched by Think Tech Hawaii's 30-plus weekly shows, Mahalo. Okay, we're back. We're live at Vernon Sharpe. He's the senior partner of Shar Sakamoto, and he's our guest today on Life in the Law, which is a study of lawyers in their careers and the Bar Association in general. So we're honored to have him here with us. And so we're talking about the book. Is there a title on the book Vernon? You know, my son had written down Vernon Char's Reflections at the Char Family Reunion 2017. I think of it more as introspection though, and I look at it also as an ability for passage of time stages, you know, sort of my version of Gail Sheehy's book, Passages. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we spoke before, you talked about how it was a tonic experience to write the book. And as it would be for really anybody who wanted to put the time in to do this, if you write about yourself, you make an autobiographical statement, you think about yourself, and it gives you a new view, an introspective view of your own life. Well, it also gives you an opportunity to brag a little bit too, but try to do it in as modest a way as possible. Yes, it was modest. So all of that. One important factor that, you know, it all began with, because it was a family gathering, was the family history. And, you know, what is amazing to me is that here I live now, 82. But even after visiting the family village, which was very modest, thinking that my father came over in 1898, he was born in 1893, the same year as Mao Zedong. And he almost didn't make it because, as I recall, his ship landed just before annexation. So through that whole period of overthrow of the monarchy, the fictional government, and then the annexation, if he didn't come when he did, they might well have been problems because the exclusion act of 1882 would have come into effect. And who knows whether I wouldn't have been on the Long March in China or my father, or here having the luxury of whey. Well, but through him and through your family, big family, you have been part of and studied the whole Chinese experience in Hawaii, including some really remarkable things that happened with respect to the relationship of the Chinese community here and the Chinese community in China. Right, right. That's been fun to do to examine some of my father's writing, you know, starting out at a law firm as a law clerk, or messenger really for $75 an hour back in the early 1900s. Not an hour. An hour would be good today. Right, a month. A month, yes. Okay, it was straight now. Right. And then, you know, just working very hard to support his eight brothers and sisters to the point where he was able, with his parents, to afford them an opportunity to go back to China to study or the mainland, you know, my uncle was, I think, the first CPA here of Chinese ancestry. But, you know, it was that strive, much as I think you see in many of the immigrant groups here, that has been a spur. Yeah. Well, you know, through true studying your father and your family, you know, you know, have the whole thing as evolved. And that's the subject of a whole other show, I think. But it's certainly a different Chinese community now. It's obviously one of the most important communities in the state. It has done well. What are the Chinese characteristics that have made this possible for your family, for the Chinese community? I think probably at the time that they came over, the fact that they had nothing and they had to strive to survive. So it was humility, hard work, perseverance, even with a lack of assets or education. They were hard worker. And that, I think, was a legacy that my father passed on to me and my brothers and sisters. Hopefully, we've passed it on to our kids, unlikely that we've passed it on to our grandchildren, because it's just so different now. It's a fragmented, yeah. Yeah. But I think we had the adversity, which was a real advantage. Adversity is an advantage. Yeah. Much as you have in other cultures, the Japanese after the war, the Jewish community, I think are good examples of that hard work, that hunger factor, that humility that's remained in the culture that many other cultures haven't had that advantage or haven't dwelt on it. Yeah. We have to appreciate it. It'd be nice to hold on to it, but at least we have to appreciate it. Be grateful for it. Be grateful for it. Yeah. So through this, you managed to complete UH and then to go to Harvard Law School. Right. How important was Harvard Law School in your professional career? It would be important in most people. I'm looking back at it, and I'm chagrin to say, when I looked at my report cards, because I found them, I've done very well at the University of Hawaii. I was big man on campus, senior activity award and president fraternity interclub console and so forth. Went to Harvard and it was a total shock. That was the first time I'd left the islands at age 22. For one thing, I remember being there, not having the proper attire, and then finding a friend who was also from Hawaii, taking me shopping. I mean, you couldn't wear polyester pants. I had one suit that my sister bought me for graduation, but you had to have buttoned on Oxford wreath shirts, fuller ties. Going to law school, you had a coat and tie to wear every day, but that was a shock. The other cultural things is that everybody was holy. I didn't know a Mexican from an Irish, from a Jewish person. You were either black or Asian, and all of that in our class of about 525. We had five Asians, four of whom came from Hawaii, one black, 12 women, one of whom is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You were a pioneer. There are no other Asians today. But the other 500 were holy guys, and it wasn't until I was through law school that I could learn the difference between the Jews from New York or the California guy or the Ivy League prep schoolers from New York or so forth. That was, I think, an important education for me, which I think some of the kids that go to law school and never leave town do not have the advantage of. It makes you worldly. Yeah. Well, so you came back and you got involved. We were running a little out of time here. Came back and got involved in the practice, in government, and in community, and in intellectual pursuits as well. I mean, you've touched all the bases in your 50 plus years of practice. And I just wanted to ask you, it's really important to know the lesson about what a successful lawyer should be focusing on in order to achieve that kind of rounded community involvement. How important is that for a practicing lawyer? Somebody who enters, for example, the bar today, what should he be focusing on in terms of helping himself financially, helping the community and helping sort of the larger fabric of the state and the country? You know, looking at it, and I have three kids that went to law school, none of them practicing here, but my advice to them is they, they shouldn't only be, they need to work hard. They need to have a hunger factor. They need to do the best that they can for the client. But that's only part of it. I think other responsibilities they have is they've got to work in the profession. They've got to get involved in bar association matters. And then they need to get involved with the public because they need to service the public. I've had the advantages of that, but I would suggest to any of the new lawyers that they need to get a well roundedness in order to be a good lawyer. Yeah. What did Jim Duffy called it one time? He called it something about you have the ministers and they heal the soul. You have the doctors and they heal the body and you have the lawyers and they, they heal the disputes and the controversies, I suppose. Hopefully. But it's, you know, clearly from your career, it's more than just putting your nose on the practice and grinding the practice and doing the cases. It's a matter of getting out and being part of a whole backbone of stability of an organization, which is the center of the stability of the community. And that's, that's really important. Thank you. I think you take the attributes of hard work, the hunger factor, you know, honesty and, and so forth. And it applies to all the segments, whether you go for it, whether it's practicing law and working for your clients, when public service, or, you know, whatever it is that, that you do. And I think you're, or eating the profession, you need to do all that. The other half of it is really important in looking back now is having fun, which I began doing when I ran my first marathon at age 50, 48. Oh, I remember you were running all the time. Yeah. But learning that. And then the spiritual aspects of it. That and then family is very important. I have a great wife who has supported me all the way through this and a great family who, you know, support me now. It's sort of real reversal. When I go traveling, what's, and they, they look out after their old man. Yeah, it's well in the book, I tell you. But let me ask you one final question, Bergen. All of that considered all of the really interesting and constructive and, you know, contributory things you've done through your professional life. And in family, in the community, in the practice, and in government, if you could change something, what would you change? I would like to see people talking and listening to each other and trying to get other points of view rather than in our current bipolar situation, both in the practice of law and in the community. If people would just listen to each other, step in the other person's shoes, I think that would go a long way. How about you? What would you change in your own life? Probably, I'm very satisfied. Right now, what I'm learning to do is to back off. I'm enjoying being a follower rather than a leader. It's time to sort of let go. And, you know, I've had my time. I've had my turn. And, you know, my objective now is just to enjoy, sit back and do other pursuits, things that I, be a good student. You know, there's a lot of things I want to learn yet. You know, it's kindness what you're talking about. And I suggest you've been kind all the way through. Well, thank you, Vernon. Thank you. So nice to know you. Aloha. Thank you.