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Kauai Self-Help Center’s 10th Anniversary

Posted on Dec 16, 2021 in Featured News, News & Reports, Press Releases
Alt text: Participants in the Kauai Self-Help Center’s 10th Anniversary event on December 15, 2021.

Participants in the Kauai Self-Help Center’s 10th Anniversary event on December 15, 2021, included: Front: Katherine Caswell, District Court Judge Trudy K. Senda (ret.), Andrew Michaels, Mark Bradbury, Hugo Cabrera and Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald. Second row: Emiko Meyers, Per Diem Judge Sara Silverman, Adam Roversi. Third row: Laura Barzilai, Aaron Larrimore and Jay Mason. Fourth row: Jenna Tatsey, Charles Foster, and Per Diem Judge Laurel Loo. Top: Chief Judge Randal G.B. Valenciano Judge Kathleen N.A. Watanabe, Deputy Chief Judge Michael K. Soong, and Sean Hartlieb.

LIHUE, HI – Commemorating Hawaii’s signature initiative to improve access to justice for all, members of the Garden Island legal community celebrated the Kauai Self-Help Center’s 10-year anniversary at an event sponsored by the Kauai Bar Association. Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald and Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Randal G.B. Valenciano honored 33 attorneys for providing more than 800 free consultations to people who sought legal assistance at the Self-Help Center between 2019 and 2021.

The Kauai Self-Help Center is the first courthouse self-help center established in Hawaii. Since its opening in 2011, volunteer attorneys have provided the Kauai community more than 4,150 free legal consultations on a variety of civil legal matters in district and family courts, including landlord tenant cases, collection cases, temporary restraining orders and divorce. Following the success on Kauai, other self-help centers were opened across the state.

“I am deeply grateful to all the hard-working attorneys who have volunteered their time and expertise over the past decade to support the Kauai Self-Help Center in its mission to provide assistance to those who need it most,” said Chief Justice Recktenwald.

“To its credit, Kauai, with the Kauai Bar Association, Judges Trudy Senda and Randal Valenciano, and Emiko Meyers of the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii (LASH) leading the charge, opened the first center with volunteer attorneys offering their time and expertise. We also had the strong support of the Hawaii State Bar Association and the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii.

“From that modest beginning, amazing things happened. Since then, Self Help Centers or Access to Justice Rooms have been opened on Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island; more than 250 attorneys have volunteered each year; and they have helped more than 31,000 people at almost no cost to the public. More than 4,000 of those people were here on Kauai. It’s no exaggeration to say that those centers have become the signature achievement of our state’s Access to Justice movement. In a recent survey of all fifty states as well as the territories, Hawaii ranked sixth for our efforts to provide access to justice”.

“Thanks to the strong commitment of our attorneys, for ten years the Kauai Self-Help Center has been providing much needed access to justice for those who would not otherwise get it,” said 2021 Kauai Bar Association President Allison Mizuo Lee. “Despite the brief closure of all self-help centers statewide at the beginning of the pandemic, the Kauai Self-Help Center reopened in May 2020 and resumed service to our residents on a new remote platform. Since then, consultations have been conducted primarily by phone for the first time, making the Self-Help Center’s services accessible to everyone, while ensuring the safety of participants and volunteers. Today, we celebrate the many obstacles that have been overcome, and all the people who have been helped because of the Kauai legal community’s dedication to the ideal of equal justice for all.”

The attorneys honored for their service are: Sergio Alcubilla, Laura Barzilai, Matthew Bracken, Mark Bradbury, Nancy Budd, Hugo Cabrera, Katherine Caswell, Nicholas Courson, James Forrest, Charles Foster, Margaret Hanson, Sean Hartlieb, Mark Ishmael, Todd Jenson, Ryan Jimenez, Mahealani Krafft, Linda Lach, Aaron Larrimore, Kai Lawrence, Laura Loo, Larie Manutai, Jay Mason, Emiko Meyers, Andrew Michaels, Shoshana O’Brien, Adam Roversi, Mia Shiraishi, Sherman Shiraishi, Sara Silverman, Margaret Sueoka, Camerson Takamura, Jenna Tatsey, Teresa Tumbaga.

Visit the Hawaii State Judiciary website for more information on the courthouse Self-Help Centers.

 

For more information, contact the Communications and Community Relations Office at 808-539-4909 or via email at pao@courts.hawaii.gov.

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