Lane Kaiwi Opulauoho is an Associate in the Honolulu office and a member of its Tax, Estate Planning and Pension Group. His focus is in the areas of estate planning, trust and estate administration, and trust and estate disputes and litigation.
Kaiwi received his J.D. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, William S. Richardson School of Law, with a certificate in native Hawaiian law, his M.B.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Shidler College of Business, and his undergraduate B.S. in Business Marketing from Boston College, Wallace E. Carroll School of Management.
While attending Richardson, Kaiwi was a research assistant to Professor of Law Emerita Melody K. MacKenzie, former director, Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, and as a Scholar Advocate to Professor Eric K. Yamamoto. He also served as a law school Ambassador, and worked as a Pre-Law Advisor in the Pre-Health/Pre-Law Advising Center at the University of Hawaii. Kaiwi and his partner were finalists in the 2018 Native American Moot Court Team Competition. He served as a legal extern to the Honorable Karen T. Nakasone at the Circuit Court of the First Circuit, and as an extern at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Kaiwi received CALI Excellence for the Future Awards in Native Hawaiian Rights, and Federal Indian Law. A version of his second-year seminar paper, entitled "Trust Lands for the Native Hawaiian Nation: Lessons from Federal Indian Law Precedents," was awarded second place in the American Indian Law Review writing competition, and was later published in the American Indian Law Review.
Prior to attending law school, Kaiwi had an extensive career in retail management working for various retailers. Most recently, Kaiwi served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Karen T. Nakasone at the Intermediate Court of Appeals, and to the Honorable R. Mark Browning, Chief Judge of the First Circuit, where he assisted the Court on probate, trust, conservatorship, and guardianship matters.
Affiliations
- Hawaii State Bar Association