Veteran lawyer James H. Case dishes on big Hawaii deals

“HAWAII LAWYER: LESSONS IN LAW AND LIFE FROM A SIX DECADE CAREER”

By James H. Case (Self-published; $11.60)

Born at Grove Farm Plantation on Kauai in 1920, James H. Case, grandson of a lawyer and son of the plantation CEO, was well ­positioned for a career among ­Hawaii’s business leaders.

He made good use of his opportunities. After attending ­Honolulu’s elite Punahou School as a boarding student, graduating from Williams College in Massachusetts and serving in the Navy, he got his law degree at Harvard. In 1951 he joined Carlsmith Ball LLP, Hawaii’s oldest law firm, founded in 1857, and stayed there 61 years.

In his new memoir “Hawaii Lawyer,” Case, now 98, reviews his long career.

In the days when the islands’ most powerful, old-boy social network consisted of Punahou alumni, the firm’s clients came from some of Hawaii’s top companies, including members of the Big Five: Alexander & Baldwin, Amfac, C. Brewer, Castle & Cooke and Theo H. Davies. Many of these companies were founded by American and English missionary and merchant families whose descendants were some of Case’s classmates.

Connections have been key to his success, he writes, citing the example of how he “got in the door” with Bank of Hawaii because he knew several of the bank’s managers from Punahou School.

That doesn’t mean success came easy.

In an unassuming voice and direct, unpretentious style free of legalese, Case describes working hard to serve clients in cases that track Hawaii’s boom years in the second half of the 20th century. In addition to leaders in the banking, sugar and tourism industries, there were developers like Dillingham Partners.

The book is organized into brief chapters, each containing a lesson. For instance, when Dillingham executives sought to construct Kahekili Highway, Case advised them to refuse an apparent bribe request from a member of the Honolulu City Council. “Lessons learned: If the thought occurred to you it probably is extortion. Second, acceding to extortion is the wrong choice.”

Case also delves into the history of how the islands’ economy was transformed by the Great Mahele of 1848, when sugar companies and others gained private ownership of Hawaiian lands.

He later worked pro bono to assist the Trust for Public Land with the public acquisition of Waimea Valley to protect it from development.

Case’s insider view of a rapidly evolving, yet still small and intimate society is engaging, yet would be more so if he hadn’t largely ignored his personal life. He is married and the father of seven, including former Hawaii congressman Ed Case and Suzanne Case, former executive director of The Nature Conservancy ­Hawaii and current chairperson of the Hawaii State Department of Land and Natural Resources.

The one family anecdote is revelatory: On the second day of a four-day hike through Haleakala Crater in 1965 with his wife Suzi and four of their children, Case’s boss summoned him back via the park rangers’ emergency hand-crank phone. “I looked at my wife; she was ashen faced.” Yet Case hiked out. The family continued on and met with near disaster. “But we solidified Dillingham as a client,” the lawyer recalls.

Case shows how lawyers can serve as potent agents of change, and how some who’ve abetted Hawaii’s urbanization miss what was lost.