Dear LCA Fellows:
Happy 2026! I am so proud to be your 2026 LCA President in this year of our nation’s 250th Birthday!
I was born in the Territory of Hawaii. Hawaii did not become a state until 1959. And I am old enough to remember that year and how it changed our islands. I grew up surfing, fishing, hunting, diving, paddling canoes, working in garages, farms, construction sites, and classrooms, and regularly getting together with friends and family over shared food and traditions in a former Hawaiian Kingdom that never had a majority population in my lifetime.
We were always a diverse culture. Our unity was being “local.” (Similar to traveling abroad and meeting and identifying with someone from the USA.) Anybody could be “local” (or from America). You did not need to be born in Hawaii (or America). You did not need to be Native Hawaiian. You did not need to be of a particular color, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, education, class or any of the many categories and identities we now recognize. All you needed was to believe in our island culture of Aloha.
The concept of Aloha – giving without expectations of return – is not unique to Hawaii but it is probably enhanced by living on an island in the middle of the Pacific. On an island, it is difficult to run from your problems. Those who do not lead with selfless kindness and generosity usually find their circle of friends and dependable allies getting smaller and smaller until they get voted off the island. By contrast, those who build trust, who are reliable, who are willing to be vulnerable, and who do not think of themselves first, usually find their circles of friends and allies widening and giving them grace, even when they have erred or acted imprudently.
To say Aloha is giving without expectations of return is incomplete. There is an expectation that others will appreciate and reciprocate the acts of kindness and generosity that others display. It is never perfect. It is never complete. It is never universal. But these individual acts initiate a norm, a culture, and a way of life.
We lawyers are students of rules, regulations, equity, and expectations. We are both the disrupters and the glue that keeps our society together and moving forward. We remind our fellow citizens of our shared constitutions, statutes, contracts, and conventions. We use these touchstone agreements to shape new collaborations for the future and to mend past tears in our social fabric – without resort to the rule of violence or the rule of raw power.
As framed in the first ABA Canon of Ethics (1909), our role as lawyers is to give the public “absolute confidence in the integrity and impartiality” of our system of justice which “cannot be so maintained unless the conduct and motives of the members of our profession are such as to merit the approval of all just men”:
In America, where the stability of Courts and of all departments of government rests upon the approval of the people, it is peculiarly essential that the system for establishing and dispensing justice be developed to a high point of efficiency and so maintained that the public shall have absolute confidence in the integrity and impartiality of its administration. The future of the republic, to a great extent, depends upon our maintenance of justice pure and unsullied. It cannot be so maintained unless the conduct and the motives of the members of our profession are such as to merit the approval of all just men.
As an “aggressively diverse” “trial lawyer honorary society established to reflect the new face of the American bar” dedicated to “superior advocacy and ethical standards in the practice of law,” LCA has unabashedly positioned itself to lead our profession and fellow citizens with integrity and humility. Consistent with our Declaration of Independence – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” – and our U.S. Constitution - “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union” – we LCA Fellows are committed to acknowledging, respecting, and embracing our differences to form a “more perfect union.”
With each act and interaction, we are initiating a norm, a culture, a way of life.
While we cannot control how others respond, we can act in a manner that does not give our opponents justifications for their own uncompromising righteousness and reliance on the rule of power over the rule of law.
Some might say this belief in equality, integrity, and humility is weak, or even worse, discriminatory and anti-something. And we have certainly seen many examples of brute force and cruelty prevailing and justifying more brute force and cruelty.
The question for us, is what world do we want to live in? What norm do we want to initiate? What culture do we want to be a part of? What way of life do we want to perpetuate?
As aptly articulated by Shakespeare’s anarchist intent on overturning the social order, “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” We are the disrupters and glue that help our fellow citizens hold together and move forward.
In this time of turmoil, we, as members of an “aggressively diverse” organization dedicated to “superior advocacy and ethical standards” “reflecting the new face of the American bar,” must stand up and lead. Not as mercenary warriors. But as lawyers unabashedly leading our fellow lawyers and citizens to a “more perfect union.” This is our hour.
Aloha and Happy New Year!
Sid K.
Sidney Kanazawa, 2026 LCA President
