Presidents' Messages

Christine Daleiden, Grant Teichman, Melissa Goldman, Micah Smith, Jenny Silbiger, Derek Kobayashi, Sergio Alcubilla, Shannon Wack, Michelle Acosta, Hon. Michael Soong, Nanci Kriedman and Daylin-Rose Heather

Our Hawai‘i contingent participated as program panelists and energetically re connected with the ABA/NLADA leaders and conference organizers, panelists and fellow long-time attendees. As in years past, the 2019 EJC and National Meeting of ATJ Chairs were rich with information, resources and ideas for collaborative programs and initiatives that may enhance our members’ delivery of civil legal services to low-income individuals, which is vital to the mission of our HSBA – “to unite and inspire Hawaii’s lawyers to promote justice, serve the public and improve the legal profession.”

Some of the Hawai‘i attendees reported on the Community Navigator project and the Hawai‘i – Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable (“HI-LAIR”), two initiatives being implemented as a result of our Justice for All (JFA) grant activities, a collaboration by the Judiciary, the ATJ Commission and HJF. Hawai‘i was one of seven states awarded the JFA Grant in 2017 from the National Center for State Courts and funded by the Public Welfare Foundation. These projects were selected after a yearlong assessment, inventory, and strategic planning process in order to relieve unmet civil legal needs for our most vulnerable and fellow Hawai‘i residents.

As Legal Aid also recently summarized in an April press release, the Community Navigator project is a part of Hawai‘i’s Justice For All initiative to help individuals overcome barriers to accessing legal help because of their ethnicity, culture, language, income, age, or geography. Trusted community leaders will be trained to provide accurate referrals and relevant legal information to better assist those that naturally come to them for help. Legal Aid is currently conducting statewide legal training for community leaders to serve as Community Navigators.

The report on HI-LAIR included a summary of the goal of the roundtable to increase collaboration and efficiency across state departments, identify programs that would be more effective, efficient, and produce better outcomes by adding legal services to the supportive services provided, and to leverage federal funds to increase access to legal aid for Hawaii’s most vulnerable. HI-LAIR participating departments include the Department of Human Services, Department of Health, Department of Public Safety, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, and Department of Public Safety. HI-LAIR has already convened three times and is well on the way to the development of inter-departmental partnerships towards enhancing delivery of civil legal services to meet LAIR’s goal.

As we were reminded at the 2019 EJC and National Meeting of ATJ Chairs - “Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building; it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists . . . it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.” Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice (Ret.), during his tenure as president of the American Bar Association (August 1976). It is truly an honor to represent the HSBA among our members working on collaborations to make equal justice for all a reality in our Hawai‘i. Mahalo!