 Aloha, I'm Carol Mon Lee and welcome to our new Think Tech Hawaii series, Education Matters, where we will explore education-related topics that touch everyone, not just formal programs in K through 12 and higher education, but also broader issues and information that affect our community. In the next few weeks, we'll have guests covering the HEE Coalition, the Huey for Excellence in Education, the Huey Hero Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education, and Phi Alpha Theta, the National Honorary History Society. And today, I'm happy to welcome my very first guest, Levi O'Connor, Director of Programs and Christina Bay, Director of Continuing Education and Communication for the Hawaii State Bar Association. Welcome, Levi. Welcome, Tina. Hello. So glad to have you here. So I wanted to talk about lawyer education because as we all know, living in a civil society like we do, we all have interaction with lawyers either on a direct basis because of some need, whether it's an accident or a family estate planning issues or a criminal case or indirectly in the day-to-day life of taking care of or following rules, regulations and laws. So tell us what the HSBA does in terms of making sure that our state, our community of attorneys, stays up to date in all the changes and challenges that come up to the law and through changes in the law and court cases. So, Levi? So Carol, in 2009, the Huey State Supreme Court passed the Rule 22, which implemented our mandatory continuing legal education program for our lawyers that are licensed here in Hawaii. That rule mandated that we have to keep up with changes to our professionalism and our ethics rules, and then in 2015, they amended that rule to require us to learn substantive areas of law to apply towards our mandatory continuing legal education. So before 2009, lawyers were not required to keep up with any changes? That's correct. We had aspirational goals that were set forth by the Supreme Court, and then in 2009, they passed the rule to be applicable in 2010, mandating that we keep up with changes to the law for professionalism and ethics. Okay, and the types of courses you set, 2015, was changed to a certain, to include substantive? Yes, that's correct. Before that, it was voluntary legal education. I see. Okay. And Tina, you are the director of the CLE, which is continuing legal education, right? So what does that mean? So the HSBA tries to put on program for the attorneys to complete the requirements with, so we offer all kinds of courses to help them stay up to date with what's going on in the law, different topic areas, and to give ethics credits as well, because ethics is a very important part of being an attorney, being ethical, following the rules of professional conduct, and to be on par with those kind of things. So we offer classes to satisfy those goals. We have several coming up. One coming up this month is a CLE about immigrants. I forgot the title. Okay. Well, we have it right here. Know your rights. Know your rights regarding immigrants. It's a free CLE that's going to be offered to the members of the umpte bar to assist with their clients who might need some guidance in that area. We also have another CLE coming up on April 18th, called Attorney's Speech, What Lawyers Can and Cannot Say. That program is designed to help attorneys to watch their ethical rules and guidelines as they speak about their case and client to the public or other people that they might interact with in their day-to-day life. Okay. Well, let me ask you about these two. First, the immigrant one. You said it's free, and is that a growing area of the law? Are there a lot of changes in the law that require our attorneys to be informed about these changes? Well, with the new administration, there's a lot of change happening, and it's very important to stay abreast of what's happening in the law. It's hard to predict what's going to happen, but we do want to keep attorneys abreast of what may happen and how to approach those things when they do occur. We also had a CLE last couple of weeks ago on employment law, as that area is also bound for lots of changes just with the new administration. So we do our best to try to present courses that are timely and relevant to attorneys to keep them aware of what's going on. Right. So the immigrant program then is not just state law, of course, it's federal law. And so how, of course, the developing laws on the ban, for instance, the immigration ban that the president is trying to impose, will that be included in the course? So this program is being put on primarily by the Diversity, Equality, and the Law Committee of the HSBA, which is starting to deal because it is a long name. And their focus is to help create or provide diversity and equality in the law to people to provide assistance to those in need most. And so this program is free because we want to have attorneys to learn more about what they can do to assist these people who need help. And we are co-sponsored with this, but the primary sponsor is the Deal Committee and... Deal. And what does it stand for? Equality and equality in the law as a committee of the HSBA, which seeks to promote those issues in the public. I see. Okay. So those at CLE, we'll cover some more of these programs in just a minute, but Levi, so tell me more about your programs, how are yours related to education? So in my department, we focus on the outside providers certifying their courses for continuing legal education for our members. So the State Bar Association, we're one of the providers that can give these educational classes to our members for their annual CLE credits, but we also certify other organizations to provide continuing legal education credits for our members. For example, a law firm may want to sponsor their own in-house programs because they'll know what their attorneys need best. They'll submit an application to our organization to certify their program for continuing legal education credit for their members. The public defenders and the prosecuting office, they always do in-house programs. They certify it through our office to make sure that it complies with the Supreme Court rules and then they can provide their own instruction. And I know the law school does too, right? The law school as well. We partner with them for whenever they bring in guest speakers. They'll open it up sometimes to our members and we'll certify their courses for continuing legal education credit. We try to partner with as many people as we can to get those education credits out there so that our members are well-educated on changes in the law. So about how many courses a year or a month do you provide to the... How many lawyers out there in the state of Hawaii? There's about 8,000 attorneys, about 5,000 are active, I believe. And those 5,000 need to have continuing legal education courses. So how many a month do you provide or how do you measure? The HSP, we try to provide at least one program a month and we also have all of our live programs available to view on demand online for our members to watch at their leisure. And so, and of course, Neighbor Islands, it's all... Yes. We work with our Neighbor Island Bar Association, the Hawaii County Bar Association, West Hawaii, all of our Neighbor Island Bar Association. We work with them to implement at least three credits per year on the Neighbor Islands so that we reach out to as many members as possible. And so some of these outside providers, can you give me an idea of some of the courses? We've talked about the state bar courses on immigration and speech, but what would be some of examples of recent courses that maybe the law school or some of the public defender's office provided? A lot of times, recently they'll be doing programs on cybersecurity, which seems to be a very emerging topic for our members and for our lawyers, because oftentimes, if we're advising large companies, public institutions, we want to make sure that a data is secure, we want to make sure that even our law firms are secured in their own data and what they're maintaining for their client files. So cybersecurity is becoming a big topic that other providers are bringing out. The state bar association, we actually just did one. The state bar did one on cybersecurity. Last month we did a program on cybersecurity. And I know that, of course, every year there's the annual Hawaii State Bar Association convention. And is that an opportunity for you to provide some programming, some courses? So the bar convention will be held on October 18th this year. It's an all day program with the help of our sections, we provide quality programming throughout the whole day. It is open to the public, primarily people from the bar will attend only, but we do encourage public people to come and join us to learn about different topics in the law as well. But it is a big event and we really hope that more attorneys can participate to learn and to also participate in the monthly meeting, annual meeting to learn about the bar association and what's going on. So every state has its own state requirements for continuing education, I guess some don't have any. Are there any federal requirements? There are no federal requirements because the taxes of law is primarily centered on the states. Each individual state will set its own requirements for continuing legal education. If there's any state that doesn't require it, I think it's only one maybe. But other than that, I'm pretty sure all states require some form of continuing education for its members. Let's see. So I think we have another program on mandatory professionalism. Sir, do we have that? We can show. That's rule. Can you tell us a little bit about this program for the lawyers? Sure. It's the rule 1.1 for Supreme Court mandatory professionalism course. The Supreme Court requires all new active attorneys to take this course within one year of becoming active. It's a course to really set the groundwork about what your duties are as an attorney as you practice law, how to assist clients, how to deal with your own business, how to carry on the difficult job of being an attorney in a good way and professionally. So it's been put on, I'm not sure when it started, but the Supreme Court has required this and really required because it is so important that attorneys know how to maintain trust accounts and interact with their clients properly. And so when is that course going to be open? So we have, this is only for attorneys and we have, it's offered twice a year because it is required by the courts to attend. The first offering will be on June 10th and the second offering will be on November 18th. I see. And they're half day programs in the morning. I see. So now how is this different from an ethics course then? Ethics credits are provided in this course, it's generally an ethics course. The idea behind it is we need to make sure we all know how to follow the rules and not commit malpractice and do things that are not going to, are going to damage the reputation of attorneys and our clients as well. We want to protect the clients as much as possible. The whole purpose behind having silly requirements by any state is to protect the consumer. We want to make sure that clients are getting the best quality service and are being protected all the time. So ethics comes into play there and our efforts to educate really goes toward consumer protection really. Have you seen a growth in the field of ethics and the law? I know on my day, I'm dating myself, but we didn't have really an ethics course and certainly no ethics requirement on the bar. There's professionalism course, I mean it's designed for the new attorneys. After you pass the bar and you meet all the requirements to get admitted to them as a member of the bar, you have to take this course within one year of going on an active status with your license. So the idea is to set the groundwork right away with our new attorneys on what the standards are for practicing law in the state and what's expected of them in their field of choice. If there are any ethical violations, what happens? Is the public, how is the public protected? First there's the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. They are the primary gatekeepers for ethics and professionalism in the state for our attorneys. We also have a committee on professionalism within the state bar to examine and make sure we're staying up to date with current trends in professionalism and ethics and members of the public can call in to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel if they have complaints about lawyers, whether it's their own or something conduct from the opposing counsel that may have run afoul of the professionalism rules. All right, well that's very good to know. We're going to take a quick break, but again to reiterate, ethics issues for the lawyers are extremely important for the public and so there is a means for the public to contact the Bar Association, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to check what's going on. So we'll be right back with my guests Levi and Tina Bae from the HSBA, we'll be right back. Aloha everybody, my name is Mark Shklav, I'd like you to join me for my program Law Across the Sea on thinktechhawaii.com. Aloha. Hello, I'm Marianne Sasaki, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Are you looking to get shrunk? Join us on Shrink Wrap Hawaii. My name is Steven Phillip Katz, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I see couples, individuals, families, you know why? Because we all have problems. And if you're curious about shrinks and what they talk about, come look at my show Shrink Wrap Hawaii and maybe you'll find your shrink. Welcome back. This is Karaman Lee again with my first show with our new series Education Matters and my guests are Levi Hocano from the Hawaii State Bar Association and Tina Fey also from the Hawaii State Bar Association. And they've both been lawyers and practicing and I've known them for a long time and appreciate your coming to our first show. So we spent the first half talking about the role of the Bar Association in keeping our own state lawyers up to date in terms of developments in the law, ethical requirements and ethical issues. So I thought we would spend this last portion of the show to talk about how the lawyers in our state turn around and educate the public. So if you could give us a little talk about that and Siri we have one last piece of information to show and that's a leadership institute flyer. So Levi do you want to talk to us about that? Sure. Back in 2007 the Bar Association had a strategic planning meeting to really take a look at the future of our profession and part of one of the major things that came out of that strategic planning meeting was the HSBA Leadership Institute. That program was instituted in 2009 and this year we're taking applications now for our ninth class. So it's been around for a long time now and it's developed every year and the idea behind it is for our attorneys who are three to fifteen years of practice. So pretty young attorneys right? Fairly new. Fairly new attorneys. And the idea is to develop them in their leadership skills not only within the legal profession but also within their communities because once somebody hears that you're an attorney all of a sudden things go off in their brains and they see you in a different light. So attorneys whether we like it or not can be viewed as leaders within our communities just by the nature of our profession. The idea is that we get our members to meet with members of our judiciary, our business community, access to justice, the government to develop them as all around leaders. Like I said, not just within the bar but also within our own communities. At the end of the program our leadership fellows are required to develop a program or a project that they have to complete before they actually finish the Leadership Institute. And so what kind of, and I know Tina was a fellow, what year was that, twenty? I was a 2014 fellow. Right. And what kinds of projects do they work on? I know that. Tina, tell us about your project. The projects are very wide, broad range. They can work to assist the bar but I think a good focus is to try to do things that are not in your regular realm of comfort and to try to help the community out. So whether it be starting a program in a school to encourage voting or something like that or all sorts of different topics can come up. I personally worked on actually a show for ThinkTech called the Living Legend Lawyers and I was on the back side of this green screen, or it's not green on TV, sorry. But if you're here, I was on the other side helping to memorialize the stories about our three-digit attorneys who are still surviving and have such great stories to tell about the old days when Hawaii was first admitted and just even prior to then what it was like to practice law and the path that they took to get here, I got to meet so many great people who are leaders in the community as well as the legal community and it was just a great learning experience for me personally and I hope that the program helps educate the public about the issues that attorneys have gone through as they've progressed in this career here in Hawaii and this helps to encourage young people to maybe be considered pursuing the career of law. So Levi, this program then is open to young lawyers between three and 15 years of experience and is there a charge? There is, there is a nominal fee of $250. We also have an opportunity to apply for financial assistance if needed. We encourage all of our members to apply. Usually our fellows are a cross-section of our community. We have people from large law firms, small law firms, solo practitioners, government attorneys, neighbor island attorneys, non-profits, legal service providers that we encourage everyone to apply. Do you have, you know, so what has happened to some of the earlier graduates? What kind of work have they gone out to do to? Well, I'm actually a member of the first class, 2009, of the Leadership Institute and I had a meeting last week with one of my fellow alums. He was visiting from the mainland after the Leadership Institute. He went to work for Apple in California and then now he's actually in Connecticut practicing law out there with an insurance firm and so we've gone all over the place since then. Some of my classmates have gone on to become general counsels at some of our, some of our businesses here in the state, heads of non-profits and gone on to some really great things since then I've come to work for the State Bar Association. Yeah, that's wonderful. So in addition to the formal education of law school, having something like a Leadership Institute gives you another set of skills then to use your, combine the legal background and then these leadership skills to pursue something that might have a wider appeal. Some of our members, some of the graduates of Leadership Institute and some of our, a lot of our other members are very active in our community. They try to reach out as much as possible. Our Young Lawyers Division actually does a lot to reach out to the community and educate the community about legal rights. They partner with our legal service providers like Volunteer Legal Services, Hawaii, Legal Aid and many of the other non-profit legal service providers to really reach out to the community so that they know some of their basic legal rights when it comes to areas of land or tenant, family law, immigration and some of the more mainstream legal topics. Right. So I know of course May 1 is Law Day and typically you hear about the shopping centers that may have tables on those days, but what else do you do? What else is the Bar Association and the, we might tell our viewers that there's a Young Lawyers, there's a Senior Counsel and then there's the in-between. There's everybody else. Well we're all members of the Bar. So what else besides Law Day, May Day do you do in terms of helping our community and besides these partnering with others? Well the Senior Counsel Division is also, in fact if the Senior Counsel Division has been going out to Moloka'i to talk to the members of the public out there to do a clinic on Moloka'i because it's tough to get assistance out there sometimes. So our Senior Counsel Division has been very good about doing that. In addition we also assist the judiciary with the courts in the community program. And what is that? So the Supreme Court has decided that they want to reach out to high school students and so what they'll do is they'll hold a Supreme Court hearing in a high school. A real hearing. A real case. A real case. And attorneys. Everything is on the line. Attorneys will argue in front of the justices, in front of an auditorium full of high school students. So rather than having it at the Supreme Court downtown, they can officially move the court to a high school auditorium. Yes. Recently we held one at McKinley High School last year. And actually next month the Supreme Court will be going to Maui and we'll be holding a Supreme Court hearing at Baldwin High School. No kidding. So the students all attend, get to hear, who isn't the audience? High school. Students attend and the great thing is volunteer attorneys will go to the classroom and actually teach the students about the course, the case that's being argued, so they have a really in-depth idea of what's going on. They're not just passive listeners but they're actually engaged in the argument themselves and they can ask questions to the judges and the attorneys after the argument is done and get their insight about what their argument may have been. The attorneys have found it to be greatly inspiring to see the young students that are so excited to learn this stuff and the students have a great chance to practice being an attorney from an early age and maybe perhaps get inspired to become an attorney as well. Boy, this is a very new development because I know they didn't do this in the old days. It's been a few years and some of the students that I've heard that attended the courts in the community program, when they would ask questions of the attorneys, the volunteer attorneys who were talking through the case with them, a lot of the things that they brought up within their classroom was brought up by the attorneys in the hearings. So it really reinforces I think with them that they're thinking like a lawyer even though they may not realize it at the time. So are they a specific type of cases because I imagine criminal cases you don't bring to them? But these are all Supreme Court cases? These are all appellate cases in front of the Supreme Court. They try to select cases that are would be interesting to the students. The most recent one that they did at McKinley was a case about custodian interrogation about whether somebody properly was read their Miranda rights before answering police questions in the marijuana case. Interesting. So what happens to the deliberation happens of course after and then do the students get informed? How do they get informed of the decision? Is that part of the education? Yeah, usually they'll get some kind of a notice that the case has been decided so they can see how the court came down on a case that they witnessed being argued. Very exciting. And what about so that's the high school students and then we of course you mentioned the senior bar going out to Molokai. Are there other areas besides let's say the community? Yes, the Young Lawyers Division. They do a lot of the community outreach on the campus. And who are young lawyers? The year that you turned 36 is their last year as a lawyer. Unless you've been admitted to the bar here for the first time unless Hawaii is your first bar admission you have five years of practice. So it's possible to be both a member of the senior council division and the Young Lawyers Division at the same time. So somebody started law school in their 60s. If they have a second career they could be a member of both both sections at the same time but the Young Lawyers Division really does a lot of the community outreach on behalf of the bar and of course they take volunteers from all ranges of the bar not just a young lawyer can volunteer with the Young Lawyers Division but they also do the Junior Judges Program. And what is that? That is where the we'll have volunteers right he's going to speak to third graders through sixth graders about making good decisions in their lives. They are the junior judge so they we talk to them about topics that they'll encounter every day bullying vandalism cheating stealing a variety of topics that they're likely to encounter at some point while in elementary school. And so how is that lined up is it through the Department of Education or is it how did they find the schools and the classrooms to go to? We usually reach out to the schools we'll send an email a letter out to the schools across the state to see if they'd be interested in participating. Sometimes it's a little bit difficult if their curriculum is already set and we know that the school here is a tightly packed schedule so if they're able to fit us in we'll be sure to go out there and talk with the students about these issues. So we have viewers who are interested in participating having the Bar Association come out to their schools they should just contact. They can reach out to us through the Young Lawyers Division, wildy at HSBA.org and then we can see if we can set something up. If they want to have us come and speak to a career day we'll coordinate with some volunteer attorneys talk about what it is that lawyers do and have the road to law school and some of their options. So any other programs we just have another minute here? Oh we also have the high school mock trial program which is actually ongoing right now. We're actually in the very final stages of our high school mock trial program. And quickly what is that? Our volunteer attorneys will work with the high school class. It's separate from like debate and things like that but they will run through a mock case. They'll argue in front of the judge at the circuit court and the finals will be held at the Supreme Court. Wow what a wonderful opportunity. Well we just have a few more seconds and Tina and Levi you have an opportunity to look right into camera too and to tell our audience what parting words you'd like to have the our viewers know about educating both two ways how lawyers are educated and how we educate the public. Well we have a lot of information available on our website HSBA.org. We have two separate tabs on our website one for lawyers to talk about our CLE programs and what kind of programs we have coming up in the future. As well as a tab for the public where members of our public who are looking for legal assistance or legal information can click on those links and get the information that they need. Okay so please visit our website HSBA.org and browse around and contact us as you need to. Thank you well thank you so much Levi thank you Tina and again this is the first show of our new series Education Matters and on behalf of the Think Tech thank you so much for participating in today's program and aloha.