Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 4, 1 April 2011 — Setting precedent [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Setting precedent

Former OHA Deputy Administrator Mona Bernardino was among a group of more than 40 legal minds who helped prepare the law school team for the competition. Bernardino advised students to be conscientious of presentation and style. "That ean distinguish you from other teams who may know the issues as well as you do," says Bernardino, adding, "I make suggestions on things like posture, eye contact, courtroomdecorumandprotocol. Saying 'Your

Honor' just enough to be respectful." And she says: "In the courtroom, you never concede. You find another way to acknowledge a judge's concerns without concedina; vou acknowledae

the weaknesses in your case but point out why you still believe your client should prevail." In 1997, Bernardino, then an aspiring lawyer, became the first UH law student to win an award at this particular moot court competition, earning top honors for Best Oralist. "I find eaeh year the students are better and better prepared," she says, attributing that to the addition of Indian law classes at the school, whieh also brings in national Indian law experts, like Patricia Zell. "Students know Indian law issues better now than we did as a result of those opportunities," says Bemardino, now the Chief Operating Officer of Hi'ilei Aloha LLC, whieh oversees OHA's subsidiaries. "When we entered the competitions then, we did it not so mueh because we knew Indian law but because we wanted to expose other native law students to Hawaiian issues. We wanted Hawaiian issues to be known in Indian law circles." — LisaAsato

Mona Bernardino, when she was a law student. - Photo: Courtesy ofMona Bernardino