2005-04-12 Board of Ethics Minutes regular mc

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CHAIR: The Chair votes aye. Thank you, Mr. Thiel. THIEL: Thank you very much. CHAIR: And you're free to leave. Item b, Petition No. 2005 -03, Mr. Lincoln Ashida, Corp Counsel, seeks an informal advisory opinion regarding pro Bono work. Thank you for coming. And we're turning over the counsel at this point to Mr. Kim. JDK: Thank you. Just for the record, I'm J.D. Kim, Deputy Corporation Counsel for the County of Maui. I'm here on a conflict of interest. ASHIDA: Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the Board of Ethics. Thank you for entertaining and hearing our request for an informal advisory opinion this morning. I also thank Mr. John Kim, J.D. Kim, from the Maui Corporation Counsel's Office, who has volunteered —his office has allowed him to take time out from his busy schedule and responsibilities on Maui, to come here and represent you today, just so that there's no appearance of impropriety, because the request does affect each of the attorneys in our office. I've submitted two written communications to the Board, my original letter and a supplemental letter, concerning the CAAP arbitration process. I'm not going to reiterate or repeat any of the substantive items I put in both my communications, but I just wanted to highlight what I thought were some salient points that I felt were important to consider. First of all, even the decision of bringing this to the Board of Ethics was something that we talked about in our office, because really—we thought originally it was, you know, with all due respect, it was almost like a no- brainer. It wasn't really an issue. But then we thought, you know, what could we do. As government appointees, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we are under a microscope. The public does look to us, and the reality is that we are held to a higher standard, which we readily accept. That being the case, the attorneys in our office said, let's play it by the book, let's take the high road, take it to the Board of Ethics. So in an abundance of caution we are here today, this morning. How this issue of pro Bono comes up, came up, is this. Our Rules of Professional Conduct, the ethics rules which govern all attorneys licensed in the State of Hawai' i, are promulgated by the Hawai' i Supreme Court. That is the We attorneys read that, we need to abide by it. We don't want to violate that, otherwise our next job involves the phrase, would you care for fries with that, sir. We take it serious. One of the rules, Rule 7 in there, specifically provides —now we agreed with this. It says, I'll paraphrase, but I think I cited it in my materials, that lawyers should strive to complete 50 hours of pro Bono work a year. It doesn't say you R