James A. Kawachika is of counsel to the law firm. His practice concentrates on civil and commercial litigation, including business, real estate, estates and trusts, and professional liability litigation, as well as serving as a mediator and arbitrator in legal disputes. He regularly advises lawyers and law firms on legal ethics and professional responsibility matters and represents lawyers in disciplinary proceedings and bar admission and reinstatement cases. He also serves as an expert witness in legal ethics.

Mr. Kawachika is a past president of the Hawai'i State Bar Association and a former chair of the Disciplinary Board of the Hawai'i Supreme Court. He is a past president and a current board member of the Hawai'i Justice Foundation and a past chair of the Hawai'i Judicial Selection Commission. By appointment of the Hawai'i Supreme Court, he also previously chaired the Hawai'i Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates judicial misconduct complaints and advises judges on judicial ethics.

Mr. Kawachika has al-so served on the boards of directors of the Lega1 Aid Society of Hawai'i and the Hawai'i chapter of the American Judicature Society. He has been appointed by four separate American Bar Association presidents to the editorial board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct, the Standing Committee of Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, and the Standing Committee on Professional Discipline. Mr. Kawachika also represented Hawai'i in the American Bar Association House of Delegates for I1 years. He has also taught legal ethics and professional responsibility at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai'i.

Mr. Kawachika received his B.A. degree from the University of Hawai'i and earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a member of the Hawai'i State Bar Association, American Bar Association, and the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. He is AV Preeminent-rated by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America by Woodward/White, Inc. and The Best Lawyers in Hawai'i by Honolulu Magazine in the areas of commercial litigation, estates and trust litigation, and professional malpractice law.

In 2011, Mr. Kawachika received the C. Frederick Schutte Award for outstanding and meritorious service to the legal community and the profession. In 2012, he was awarded the Hawai'i Justice Foundation' s Spirit of Justice Award for his contribution to the access to justice.

Mr. Kawachika is a contributing author of the newest edition of the Annotated Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions (2d ed. 2019), a publication of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. The Standards is used by most states, including Hawai'i, as a guideline in assessing and determining the appropriate sanction to be applied in a lawyer disciplinary proceeding.