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who were expressing their opposition are not county attorneys, they're <br />state attorneys. <br />CHAIR: What about private practice, what's the buzz in the private practice <br />world, have you heard of that? It becomes an academic issue, really, if <br />your private practice—if you're doing your work probably on their, in <br />their facility. <br />ASHIDA: Right, and they don't have this same concern that we do, because they <br />have their —and they use their staff. And it's no problem. But for us, <br />we don't envision ever touching our civil service staff, you know, this is <br />something we do wholly on our own. We recognize that. So the private <br />guys —and it varies, some attorneys, theya friend of mine, Eric <br />Kobayashi, used to practice in Kona. He won an award last month for <br />pro Bono service. So, it depends on the person, you know, if they're <br />willing to contribute. <br />CHAIR: Do we hear from BJ? Do I get Bobby Jean's input on this? I mean, <br />you're certainly free to chime in. <br />ASHIDA: She's turning her light off. She's not <br />BJLT: I did go and do a search of other jurisdictions, and we did find precedent <br />in other states who have addressed the issue, and determined that for <br />government attorneys, de minimis use of—that's just like, you get a <br />phone call, someone sends you a fax, maybe the mail arrives at your <br />office. That kind of stuff was not a problem, in particular if there is a <br />government policy of trying to provide legal services to the poor or of <br />providing services to the under - privileged. <br />CHAIR: Which Judge Moon, the attorney sorry, Chief Justice Moon, has <br />provided that rule, has he? <br />ASHIDA: No, what he's talking about is if your local government here, <br />government, has laws, ordinances, or otherwise, which provides for the <br />government responsibility for the care of the indigent. <br />BJLT: Well, it's a little bit broader than that. It's two steps, the way I looked at <br />it. One, we have direction from our State Judiciary, saying that we're <br />supposed to provide services to the indigent. We also have a State <br />Legislature that funds services to the indigent. We have a legal system <br />that says you have to provide services to the indigent. On the County <br />level, while the County has not specifically targeted money for legal <br />services, we have all kinds of programs that try to take care of people <br />17 <br />