 Hi, I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Life in the Law, Wednesdays from 1 to 130. I'm delighted today to have Carlos Perez-Mesa on my show. He's a colleague of mine and also a very well-known litigator about town. You can tell me all about litigation because I don't know anything about litigation. So welcome, Carlos. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be a guest on your show. I don't know how well-known I am, but I have had some trial experience. How long have you been here? 26 years. I think you're known, then. Well, to the lesser or greater degree, but I met my wife in New York City. She's from Hawaii. She convinced me to move from New York City to Hawaii. At that time, I was working for a firm in New York, New Jersey with an office overlooking the Pacific River. So I traded that office for an office overlooking the Pacific Ocean. You have a beautiful office. Yeah. No, it's been a good transition. I've been in Hawaii 26 years, so I don't think I'm officially Kama'aina. Is she from Kailua, your wife? Yeah, Kailua. She went to St. Andrew's Priory where she tells me she was a valedictorian. And you should watch our show on St. Andrew's coming up on OC 16 with the next month. Insta-Priority. Yes, absolutely. Some of our young interns are doing the show. It should be fascinating. And just like my husband, you're just like me, my husband's from Kailua, and we met in New York. And why wouldn't you come here? You know what I mean? It's kind of like a no-brainer. Yeah, it was a very easy call. I was working for a firm in New York. I wasn't particularly happy there. I had a car and a guarded lot over Christmas. It was stolen. I don't know how a car can get stolen out of a guarded lot. But at that point in time, I was getting kind of sick of the New York area, not to slam New York, but it's- Well, New York's rough, though. I'm from New York, and I'll say that. It's not Honolulu. So when my wife asked me if I wanted to move to Hawaii, I said, sure. So we flew from New York to Maui where our parents own a bookstore, and she ran the bookstore, and I studied for the bar and got the best hand of my life. That's a terrific way to go. It was easy going from New York to a nice condo in Maui. Do they still have the bookstore there? No. It was right before borders came in and it just was not a particularly good location and no offense to Maui, but not a- Not a big reading population. Not a big reading population, but they had a nice candy store. They had a nice place to get some coffee and people could hang out, but it was doomed to fail, unfortunately. But my wife did a good job running it. Like I said, I studied for the bar and from there moved to Honolulu. Oh, okay. That's easy. It's such a drag. We have to retake the bar. Every single person retakes the bar to come here. But having been an attorney here for 26 years, it's a good idea that you have to take the bar. Otherwise, every Tom Dick and Harry would be coming to Hawaii to practice law. Yeah, and that's not the sort of environment you really want to have. So even if you're Supreme Court justice, I think you still have to take the bar here. But yeah, I took the bar and started on my merry way of being a lawyer here in Hawaii. So you do insurance defense? Correct. Okay. So what does that mean? Because I have no idea. Okay. I explain it like this. So for example, let's say you have state farm insurance. You're in a car accident. Let's say you rear end somebody. You have state farm insurance. The person you rear end decides to sue you. Then as I would represent the state farm insured in the lawsuit that's been filed against them. So it's a defensive action. So my job, to a large extent, is to try to determine the credibility of the plaintiff, the nature extent of their injuries, and try to minimize the recovery. Wow. I'm surprised they use outside counsel. Don't they have their own cadre of lawyers? I used to do that. I was an AIG at House Counsel for a number of years, for seven years, did only AIG cases. After that, I went on on my own with another gentleman by the name of Roy Epstein. So it was Epstein and Perez Mesa serving the greater Jewish and Cuban communities here in Honolulu. And I did a lot of AIG work as well as work for other firms. But people don't understand this, but 99.3% of cases in Hawaii, civil cases, settle. Yes, they do. So it's very, it's actually very rare that a case goes to trial. However, I've been fortunate or unfortunate enough to have tried about 20 cases here in Hawaii on all the islands, some big, some small. Do you love trial? Do you shine there? I do. I like the theatrics of it all. I'm a movie geek. And one of the reasons I went into law was like most people who go into law, I saw to kill a mockingbird. I liked it. Me too. Me too. Exactly. How much would that be? Yeah, I like good oratory. And which includes when I was practicing Catholic, there were some priests who could deliver terrific homilies. And I thought I like the gift of oratory to be able to reach people. Absolutely. And like I say, I like films. So all that encouraged me to go into law in particular litigation. And it is a rush, but it's a lot of work and you don't want to be doing it too often because it's very worrying. Right. It's very time consuming. The preparation is very time consuming. Absolutely. And also there's the element of unpredictability. Any attorney who tells their client they can guarantee a certain result if somebody's never tried a case. Right. Because you never know what the 12 people are going to do, what issues they're going to focus on, any of those things. Would you say the closer cases come to trial anyway? Like in other words, if the case was clear one way or another, it would settle probably before trial, right? Yes. Yes. So you're really talking about the ones that can argue either side with the... Correct. Generally the cases, at least that I've been involved in that go to trial, are cases that involve big issues of liability that is big issues of who's at fault or big issues of damages. So for example, as a defense attorney, you would typically try to minimize a plaintiff's injuries. The plaintiff attorneys would try to maximize them. So what may be a small next drain, the defense would argue the plaintiff's attorney would argue, no, no, that's a serious condition. It's a required surgery. Right. And then there are issues of causation and science and medicine that weigh in in terms of evaluating a person's injuries. Well, the personal... In New York, the personal injury lawyers are... They're sort of a group unto themselves. They're real kind of flamboyant guys, really big personality guys. Is that true here too? Do you have that kind of personality? Personal attorney attorneys are good friends of mine, but... That doesn't mean they can't have a big personality. I have a big personality. That is true. There are some that fit in that category. Not all, though. I think, again, most plaintiff attorneys would rather avoid court because it doesn't make a lot of business sense to do that. And again, there's the issue of unpredictability. But yeah, there are a lot of the flamboyant personalities that become personal injury attorneys. I mean, the Marvin Bell-Eyes... Right. That's what I had in mind. Yeah. Those kinds of people that... I won't mention names on the air, but there are certain attorneys here that kind of fit that profile. I think that's a great way to be. If you can be a sole practitioner or have a small practice and be yourself and make lots of money too, what's not to like? It's a great form of practice. Sure. And trials as much as attorneys try to deny it is a form of theater. It's a form of performance. Absolutely. And you have to understand that. And with all these TV shows, certain... If you're a juror, you want to show. If you see law and order 20, 30, 40 times, you expect the closing argument is going to look like this. The opening is going to look like this. A croc examination is going to look like this. They're looking for the Perry Mason moment, which usually are few and far between. I mean, there's not going to be a situation where you're going to get a doctor on the stand and they're going to say, that's right. I'm not really a doctor. I'm actually a podiatrist from Newark. No, you don't get those moments, but you're constantly trying to chip away their credibility, the documents they relied upon, all the basis for their conclusions. So I think it's really interesting how much TV and movies have an influence on law. Absolutely. People see a closing argument. They expect that closing argument. I think people don't realize that. It shapes people's views of the courtroom. I mean, like all these Tom Cruise movies in which he's a lawyer... Right, right. I mean, those are obviously... It's for entertainment, so you want to maximize the drama and the timing of certain things and you want that big production, which rarely comes to pass in an actual trial. I mean, a lot of the time, it's quite frankly, it can be a little tedious. I had a case recently where we had to educate a judge on sewage pipes and quite frankly, it's kind of hard to make the sewage pipe... Sexy. It's where you can't make it sexy. You just can't. But you do what you can and to maximize your ability to communicate and reach out to the jury and try to highlight those issues that they're going to focus on. I liken it a lot to... Now that the RNC just finished and the DNC is going on to writing speeches and you got to know which audience you're trying to reach, what points they're going to accept, what arguments not to make. Maybe that's why a lot of lawyers go into politics, but all those things come into play and you want to have a certain script and try to stay within that script. Did you ever want to be an actor or did you always want to be a lawyer? No, maybe I'm a frustrated actor. I don't know, but I do like the performance aspect of being a trial attorney. I would not want to be stuck at a desk doing research 24-7 that's just not me. I think you'd be a very memorable actor because I think you're distinctive in the off. I think you'd be very memorable. Yeah, I really do. That's kind. I can see it. My father was a physician from Cuba, my uncle was a physician from Cuba and very theatrical, a lot of hand gestures. So they were the type of doctors that people would tend to remember because they had kind of big personalities and they didn't take themselves that seriously. So they emigrated from Cuba before the revolution? Correct. The revolution was basically 1959. My father was a physician, my uncle was a physician and they left Cuba in the mid-50s for a couple reasons, but primarily because they had fallen afoul of the Batista regime and anyone who knows anything about Latin American politics or Cuban politics in general knows that the Batista regime was basically a puppet regime of the United States government and it was a very repressive regime, much like the Shah of Iran before he got toppled. But long story short, they realized that their professional career would be very limited if the Batista remained in place and there were safety issues. So they both left as physicians to the United States, not speaking a word of English. I love a story like that. I mean, you can't help but love that. It's very, very impressive to be a physician, not speak the language, have to learn the language and take the international board to become a licensed physician in the United States. But they did that. My uncle was very close to Cuba still and he would go back two or three times a year to, well, once he was able to, to donate medical books from the United States to Cuba. So there wasn't the kind of tension, I mean, some Cuban communities, I'm thinking of communities in Florida, there's a little bit of tension with the current administration. But your uncle wasn't so dead set against that or was he? Well, there are factions within the Cuban American population. For example, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and most of the Florida Floridian Cubans are very conservative. My father and uncle were exact opposite. They were certainly, to repeat, certainly not Procastro, but they certainly saw the benefits of the revolution coming in. Right, because if they didn't, if Batista was an issue, I mean, that was a solution, right? It might not have been the right solution. Correct, correct. And so the health education of the average Cuban citizen actually has improved as well as a literacy rate under the Castro regime. However, obviously I'm not going to take a Procastro position in light of the long standing history of abuse and civil rights. No, no, absolutely not. But it's interesting that there's such a diversity among the Cuban American population and it's viewed so differently. I guess maybe it's not so surprising if one just thought about it for a moment. Well, a lot of the time, it depends on what class you were leaving when you came to Cuba. Let me just take a quick break and I would love to talk about the class structure of Cuba. That's like, I'm totally interested in that. So you're watching Life of the Law. I'm Marion Sasaki with Carlos Perez-Mesa and we'll be back in just a moment. Hey everybody, my name is David Chang and I'm the new host of a new show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you secrets on giving yourself the smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests and great mentors of mine from the political, military, business, nonprofit, you name it. So it's something for everybody. Hi, my name is Kim Lau and I'm the host of Hawaii Rising. You can watch me live every other Monday at 4 p.m. Aloha. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Law Across the Sea. Please join me every other Monday to hear lawyers from Hawaii discussing ways to reach across the sea and help people and bring people together. Aloha. Hi, welcome back to Life in the Law. Carlos and I were just embarking on a conversation about the class structure of the emigres from Cuba. And as I said, I find that very interesting. So tell me how the class structure influenced the political beliefs of the emigres that landed here. Well, I think if you are middle or middle class, you leave Cuba, you left a lot behind. You lost property to the government. So obviously you're going to be bitter towards the Castro regime. However, at least in my father and uncle's situation, they were not landowners. The story was that their parents won a lottery which allowed them to pay for my uncle and my father to go through medical school. So when they left Cuba, they weren't leaving behind a palatial mansion. They were leaving not much in ways of material positions. But my father was, quite frankly, very, very intelligent. So he picked up English very quickly. He met my mother in Colorado Springs. My mother was a laboratory technician, and I guess my mother liked the Ricky Ricardo accent, which was, I love Lucy shows. It was big. Who wouldn't love an American accent? Everybody does. Yeah. So they met. My father had to go back to Cuba. He had a hard time getting back, leaving Cuba back to the United States. But they met. He did his residency in St. Louis and the years go by. I'm born. My brother's born. Melissa's born. And we were basically for a long time the only Hispanic population in Columbia, Missouri, which is where I grew up. I couldn't imagine that that's true. But your explanation of the class structure in Cuba makes so much sense, particularly because Carlos and I have very similar political beliefs. And so it's unsurprising that Rubio and Cruz are Republicans and people like us are Democrats because the values, the Republican values are those of the rich. And so do you have any comments about the Republican Convention or this one? The Republican was crazy. It was ridiculous. Well, I just woke up this morning and read Huffington Post. And I'm reading that Donald Trump is actually encouraging Russia to hack Hillary's emails, which is astounding. So presidential. Yeah, it's actually astounding in this day and age. But going back to the Republican National Convention, I'm a law-of-long liberal Democrat, but I've never in a million years would disparage the opponent. I would never say throw Romney in jail, throw McCain in jail, any disparaging comments towards their political opponent. But we reached a new low point. And it's very disturbing. And I don't know. He's certainly not a gentleman statesman. Not at all. And this is following on the heels of one of the most dignified, intelligent, restrained individuals who's had to deal with obstructionism for the last eight years. And but for a very intangible Republican Congress could have gotten a lot more done. Agreed. I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, it's funny. Did we talk about this that we think that Hillary Clinton's choice for Vice President was colored by the fact that she didn't want to take senators who would be appointed by Republican governors away from that, that she's looking to have a majority in the Senate so she can get some Supreme Court Justices or something. Right. No, we did touch upon that briefly. And if I can just address that briefly, Tim Cames seems to be a perfectly fine choice. I think that's right. A good character, intelligence. Intelligence speaks Spanish. She can reach out to Spanish American voters. He's like a liberal Democrat Catholic. He's a practicing Catholic, a former Catholic. And a fairly decent, nice person who has ever right to be the vice presidential candidate. I'm quite frankly, as a Bernie supporter, I am more than a bit disturbed of all the Bernie or bust people, I think. I think they're... And to quote Sarah Silverman, they're just being ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. And nothing else sore losers. They're being histrionic and I don't know. The stakes are too high in this election. And I will go out and let me say that the 2016 election is the most important of my generation, just in terms of the way the country can go. But be that as a man, yes, I have a long abiding interest in politics, but I would never in a million years want to go into it simply because I don't think I have a tough enough skin and would feel very frustrated by dealing with people who don't respect facts. Not in Hawaii, but nationwide. Well, you know, listen, if you want to go into politics, Hawaii is one of the best places because the people are, they're honest, genuine, and they're very left-leaning. So I was delighted to come here. Yeah. Carlos and I were the... Were we the sole lawyers who supported Bernie Sanders? It was like a little secret that we had in the office that we're like, we couldn't believe... I mean, as he kept going on and on, it was really an amazing, an amazing story. It was an amazing story that came out of nowhere in much the same way that the Trump campaign kind of came out of nowhere. And no one took him seriously. But he ran a terrific campaign. I think he's moved the party in the right direction. And I think his supporters should be very grateful for that. Right. And let me just use this opportunity to give a shout out to a friend of mine who's a local politician, Trevor Ozawa, who serves on the city council. We used to work at the firm. That's right. He used to work at Clay Chapman. A very, very decent, nice television... I'll have to get him on the show. Trevor, you have to come on the show. Yeah, he's entertaining. We'll have to talk. You'll tell me all the secrets of the firm. So I was going to say... Oh, you know, I always thought when you said a shout out to a friend, I thought you were going to say Cory Booker, because he's from your neck of the woods. And he was spectacular, I thought. He gave a very good speech, and I thought it was underappreciated. Well, Michelle Obama. Exactly. And I felt sorry a little bit for Elizabeth Warren, who had a follow-up, Michelle Obama, who gave just a phenomenal speech. And I thought Bill Clinton did a fine job as well. And I'm expecting fireworks tonight from the president. Oh, I think he's going to be great. He's always great. I mean, he's one of those guys where everything falls into place for him. I mean, I've known about him for a very long time and he left a legacy even when he was in law school. He was well known, you know, as the exact kind of person he is now. Yeah, I remember there was a New York Times article about him when he was the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. So he was on the screen, he was on the radar then, and then giving the basically the keynote address, I believe, was in 2004. I remember seeing that, and I thought, wow, that was unbelievable. Just a terrific speech, and you know, he wrote pretty much all of it. And you could see that he was destined for, you know, great things. So what do you think is going to happen now with President Obama and Michelle Obama? Like, they're so young, and I mean... That is hard to say. I assume each of them will be writing books. I just read today that the presidential library is going to be in Chicago, unfortunately not in Hawaii. But I would hope that Michelle would use the massive amount of goodwill she's developed as First Lady to give speeches, give lectures, and do a lot of even more public service work. I'd love to see him take the sort of supporting role and see what she's capable of doing, because I have a feeling it's like it's tremendous things. I don't know if she has any interest in that, but she was so spectacular at the convention. But you know what my real dream is? My real dream is for President Obama to be appointed to the Supreme Court. I don't think that's a pipe dream. I don't think that can ever happen, but I think he'd be an excellent justice. He's very young. No question. I think the short answer is he can probably do pretty much anything he wants to. I would hope, like his wife, that he would do a lot of speaking engagements, particularly in urban areas, because I think he could be a beacon of hope for a lot of people, so he can go into areas like Baltimore or Ferguson or inner city Los Angeles and basically be a beacon of hope for these folks, and again highlight the importance of education and family and all those values that are important. So let's talk about Hillary Clinton. I mean, you know, we were Bernie supporters, so for a long time, you know, I would say I despair. I just didn't think very highly of Hillary Clinton, but I'm fairly happy. I mean, I'm fairly happy she's the candidate, and I'm certainly happy that this momentous woman, that a woman became a candidate, this happened finally for us. Yeah, I think she suffered from a lot of bad pressure. I mean, you have to understand she's been in the public eye a long time. There's a long record against her. I agree. She's a little moderate for my taste, but so be it. She's a little hawkish. That's my biggest issue with her is the hawkish, and even TPP, I don't really, that's a big issue, but I'm afraid that she's little, little on the hawkish side. Overcompensation? I don't know, maybe, but you know, Bill Clinton wasn't the most liberal president. No, he was a centrist. Yeah, he was very centrist. So I'm expecting, I mean, I think she's actually to the left of him, but I'm expecting a very centrist administration, and I'm expecting her to win, obviously, although Nate Silver says he's not going to win. Well, that survey I think, apparently taken today or yesterday, but yeah, I think it's important that voters come out because this is a very, as I mentioned before, a consequential election, and the alternative is not really an alternative. Hillary, I think, is a fine representation of what the first woman presidential candidate and president should be. Right. Mind, body, heart, soul. She's got that. She's talented. She's intellectual. She's gifted intellectually. She's done the right thing, you know. No question. She cares. She's certainly tough enough. She's tenacious. She certainly is. Absolutely. Because you think what she's gone through from being the governor's wife to being in the Senate, to being the secretary of state, first lady, I mean, she's she's been battle tested. But most I think even more importantly is that she wants a job and she's willing to do the homework and the necessary work to do a fine job. She's not riddled with the ADD or a tendency to bluster like somebody else we should we all know. A former president and Donald Trump. Yes. No, exactly. Exactly. But somebody made the comment about the Republican convention that none of the former president President Bush wasn't there, junior or senior, and none of the really imminent, imminent Republican politicians were there to support. To their credit, to me, it's a litmus test. I'm always a believer in putting country before party, but that's apparently a minority position in the current Republican administration and Republican party, which is a shame. Because to Romney's great credit, George H. W. Bush's great credit, George W. Bush's great credit, they don't want to be any part of this show. No, right. What do you think is his appeal? I mean, what are people feeling such that they need somebody like Donald Trump? Well, all I can do would be to kind of mimic or parrot NBC commentators' opinions, which are people are a lot of people are scared to death of terrorism. A lot of people have economic uncertainty. They feel that their wages are stagnating. They're stuck in a middle class that's not expanding. They're upset with all the bailouts. They think that's a rig game. Wall Street runs everything. And they're just lashing out. And they're looking for someone who can offer them easy answers. And he provides them with that. He provides those answers. He guarantees. Before you said you can never guarantee a client the outcome of a trial. You certainly, as a presidential candidate, can't guarantee the country the outcome of your policies. I mean, the president has little influence, actually, when it comes really right down to it. Absolutely. Those are just some reasons. And probably like you, I asked my friends, well, do you know anyone who's voting for Donald Trump? And the answer is no. No, I don't. And so I think I'm living in a bubble. We're living in a bubble. Oh, I'm living in a bubble. My own making, I think. About making, yeah. As am I. But there is a large segment of the population that is just disgusted by how things have gone. And not to be a racial portrait of this, but it's kind of the last cry for the angry white man. I think that's right. I think that people are always discussing they don't understand what white privilege is. And I think that this is almost sort of an explanation in that people think that their life should be a certain way because they are a certain kind of person. And, you know, there aren't any shoulds. There is merit, you know. And so, you know, and this always comes up in the affirmative action discussion that you go down that path. So it is unfortunate that the white middle class, low middle class male population feels that they've been left behind. But, you know, frankly, they aren't doing as well as they were doing in, let's say, 1970. Well, I mean, we can. But so, but a lot of people are doing well. I mean, that's right. And so there is this frustration, which I think if you're a Democrat or a liberal Democrat like myself, you understand the frustration. But Donald Trump ate your answer. Right. That's just burn the place down kind of mentality. I agree with you. I agree with you. So that's more than a little troubling. Let me just thank you. I'm sorry, I don't mean to, I know we could talk about this for an hour. We could talk about this for an hour and a half. But I thank you so much. My pleasure. Would you like to make a final point about Donald Trump, other than don't vote for him? He has a problem, right? I guess what I would like to do is ask potential Donald Trump voters out there, why is he appealing? Because he's well documented, racist. He's got misogynistic tendencies. He doesn't research issues. He's got paid to fail businessman. What's so entrancing? I don't get it. We don't get it. So we'll listen, Carlos. Thank you so much for coming. My pleasure. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. And you're watching Life in the Law. Mary Ann Sasaki. Join us every week on Wednesdays from 1 to 2. I think to Kauai.