2026 HSBA Bar Convention - Appellate Seminar

Lance D. Collins, Law Office of Lance D. Collins, Maui, Hawaii

Moderator: Hawai'i State Cases Update 2026

Lance D. Collins is an attorney in private practice before the state circuit and appellate courts and serves as a per diem district and family court judge for the Second Circuit.

Mr. Collins serves as the Chair of the HSBA Appellate Section. Mr. Collins holds a Ph.D. from the University of Hawai'i and publishes on topics including the legal histories of the Philippines and Hawai'i during their American periods, most recently authoring Pro Bono and the Moral Life of Lawyering in the Bar Journal Article and a chapter about the history of Land Court in Hawai'i and the Philippines in Historical Investigations in West Maui (2024). Mr. Collins is a multiple Na Hoku Hanohano award recipient for his work in Hawaiian music and wrote the award-winning narrative feature film, My Partner, set in Lahaina.

Kai Lawrence, Attorney at Law, Kailua, Hawaii

Panelist: Hawai'i State Cases Update 2026

Kai Lawrence, Native Hawaiian, was born and raised in Utah, but returned to Hawai`i in 2011. He runs his own law practice, Kai Law (www.hikailaw.com), and specializes in Appeals. He is on the Board of the Native Hawaiian Bar Association, and he runs a writers and storytelling group called WeWrtieHI.

Mr. Lawrence is actively involved in reclaiming his culture as he is currently studying 'Ōlelo, learning Uhau Humu Pōhaku (stone weaving), and Oli (traditional chant).

Sarah Nishioka, Attorney at Law, Honolulu, Hawaii

Panelist: Hawai'i State Cases Update 2026

Sarah Nishioka is a former law clerk for Associate Justice Sabrina S. McKenna of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, and served as a Deputy Public Defender handling appellate, juvenile, misdemeanor, and felony cases on Oahu.

Now in private practice, Ms. Nishioka takes on appellate matters of all kinds and continues to take criminal trial cases. She earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Women's Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and her law degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law.

R. Brian Black, Executive Director at Public First Law Center

Moderator: SCOTUS Roundup 2025-2026

Brian Black is the executive director of Public First Law Center. Before that position, he served as a deputy corporation counsel for the City and County of Honolulu. And prior to moving back to Hawai`i, Mr. Black was a partner at Hogan Lovells in New York, litigating complex commercial cases across the United States primarily for colleges and universities.

Mr. Black graduated from Harvard College and Cornell Law School and clerked for Judge Janet Hall of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Judge Clyde Wadsworth, Associate Judge of the Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals

Panelist: SCOTUS Roundup 2025-2026

Clyde Wadsworth is an Associate Judge of the Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals. Prior to his judicial appointment in 2019, Judge Wadsworth served for three years as Hawaii's Solicitor General. In that capacity, he headed the Appellate Division of the Department of the Attorney General, with oversight authority over most state and federal appeals in the Department, including briefs filed on behalf of the State in the Hawai‘i Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court.

Previously, Judge Wadsworth was of counsel to Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, now Dentons, and before that, a partner at Steefel Levitt & Weiss in San Francisco, now Manatt, where his practice focused on complex business litigation and appeals. During his thirty years of private practice, he also served as pro bono counsel on several significant cases brought to safeguard LGBTQ civil rights, including Romer v. Evans, the first U.S. Supreme Court case to declare sexual orientation discrimination unconstitutional, and Jackson v. Abercrombie, the federal constitutional challenge to Hawaii’s marriage law.

Judge Wadsworth received his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Princeton University, and his law degree from the UCLA School of Law, where he served as an editor of the UCLA Law Review.

Kamaile A.N. Turčan, Associate Professor of Law, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law

Panelist: EERS Seminar: Recent Developments in Ocean Resource Management

Kamaile Turčan is an Associate Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, where among other courses she is teaching Administrative Law and Emerging Ocean Law.

Prior to joining the faculty, Ms. Turčan served in the Office of General Counsel, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, and served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Ninth Circuit Judge Richard Clifton, and District of Hawai`i Judge David Ezra.

Panelist: Appellate Seminar: SCOTUS Roundup 2025-2026

Kamaile Turčan (née Nichols) joined the William S. Richardson School of Law in 2023 as an Associate Professor of Law and teaches courses on Civil Procedure and Administrative Law. Professor Turčan is an alumna of Richardson, where she served as co-Editor-in-Chief of the University of Hawai‘i Law Review and earned an Environmental Law Certificate.

Prior to joining the faculty at Richardson, Professor Turčan was a partner at Jones Day in Washington DC, where she maintained an appellate advocacy and complex civil litigation practice. In this capacity, she litigated in state and federal courts on behalf of clients ranging from individual civil rights litigants to Fortune 500 companies engaged in high stakes commercial disputes. She has also served in government at both the state and federal levels.

Professor Turčan was an attorney in the Office of General Counsel, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where she provided legal advice to agency clients on the application of federal statutes to the management of fishery resources and protected species within the Western and Central Pacific Region. At the state level, she was the second law fellow hired under the Environmental Law Program’s fellowship program to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR).

Professor Turčan previously clerked for Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court of the United States; Judge Richard Clifton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and Judge David Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai‘i.

Kaliko'onalani Fernandes, Solicitor General for the State of Hawai’i

Moderator/Panelist: Roundtable on Appellate Practice in Hawai'i Courts

Kalikoʻonālani Fernandes is the Solicitor General for the State of Hawaiʻi. Ms. Fernandes leads the Department of the Attorney General’s Appellate Division and has oversight authority over most state and federal appeals handled by the Department, including briefs filed on behalf of the State of Hawaiʻi in the United States Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, and the Hawaiʻi Intermediate Court of Appeals.

Ms. Fernandes is a member of the Hawaiʻi State Judiciary’s Permanent Committee on Equality and Access to the Courts, co-chairs the HSBA Committee on Diversity, Equality, and the Law, and serves on the boards of the Hawaiʻi Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the Hawaiʻi LGBT Legal Association, and the HSBA Appellate Section.

Ms.Fernandes served as a law clerk to the Honorable Richard R. Clifton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Susan Oki Mollway of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi.

Chief Justice Vladimir Devens, Supreme Court of Hawai'i

Panelist: Roundtable on Appellate Practice in Hawai'i Courts

Vladimir Devens was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court on May 5, 2026, and was an Associate Justice from January 12, 2024. Justice Devens is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and a 1987 graduate of the University of California Berkeley School of Law (fka Boalt Hall), where he served as an Associate Editor of the Industrial Relations Law Journal.

Prior to his appointment, Justice Devens worked in private practice for over 30 years where he concentrated his practice in civil litigation in various areas of the law. He also served as a Director on the Hawaiʻi State Bar Association Board and on various HSBA committees.

Judge Karen Nakasone, Chief Judge, Intermediate Court of Appeals

Panelist: Roundtable on Appellate Practice in Hawai'i Courts

Karen Tooko Nakasone was sworn in as an Associate Judge of the Intermediate Court of Appeals on November 2, 2020.

Judge Nakasone was first appointed as a Circuit Court Judge of the First Circuit (Oahu) on November 1, 2011, and served as a trial judge for nine years, in both the Civil and Criminal Divisions.

A graduate of the Boston University School of Law, Judge Nakasone served as law clerk to the Honorable Simeon R. Acoba Jr. for the Intermediate Court of Appeals. She then served as a criminal trial and appellate lawyer for the State Office of the Public Defender for fifteen years.

Judge Nakasone is a 2008 Pacific Century Fellow and was named 2009 Best Lawyers Under 40 by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

Judge Nakasone is a graduate of Hawaii Baptist Academy and received her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College. She also attended the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and studied abroad at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, on an Okinawan Prefectural Government scholarship from the Hawaii United Okinawa Association.