Episode Seven: Finding your niche in the law with Yuka Hongo
Full transcript below.
There are many ways to lead a lawyer life and today’s guest has found her own niche in a part of the world and an area that suits her perfectly. Yuka Hongo of Hongo Law Office is a US qualified attorney who found her niche in Honolulu. Yuka is a perfect example that you don’t have to be loud and aggressive to be a lawyer, but that empathy and supporting people when they need it is an equally important aspect of the field. I can’t wait to be able to travel freely again and check out some of her recommendations for a trip to Hawaii!
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of yourself listening to the episode on your device, post it to LinkedIn, and tag me and Yuka. Or leave us a message here!
In this episode you’ll hear:
A fabulous recommendation for your next trip to Hawaii
Why Yuka considers herself a nomad
How Yuka helps people in her own niche law practice in Hawaii
Why she started her own practice and her simple yet powerful tip for people considering this
What Yuka wishes she has known when she was starting out in her own practice
Yuka’s surprising hobby given that she lives in Hawaii
Her favourite podcast and other fun facts
About Yuka
A graduate of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Yuka Hongo is a licensed attorney in Hawaii, California, New York and the District of Columbia. Born in Japan, she came to the United States as a young child and was raised in a bilingual setting. Professionally, she has extensive experience working in both languages, including complicated legal transactions.
Spending time in both Japan and the United States, Yuka saw what can happen when a loved one dies without an estate plan in place. Assets can be tied up in court for months. She guides families through the probate process in Hawaii and helps people create appropriate and effective estate plans to make sure their wishes are followed.
Yuka typically travels to Japan twice a year, where she meets with clients and gives seminars on effective estate planning. She uses her knowledge of estate law, her bilingual skills and her understanding of both cultures to help residents and non-residents of the U.S. plan ahead to avoid future problems.
Connect with Yuka
Website: http://www.hongolaw.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuka-hongo-68ab58123/
Links
Halekulani Hotel: https://www.halekulani.com/
How to manage a small law firm: https://howtomanageasmalllawfirm.com/
Be that lawyer podcast hosted by Steve Fretzin: https://fretzin.com/podcast/
Connect with Catherine
Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawyeronair
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.oconnell.148
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oconnelllawyer
Transcript
Catherine: Hi, everyone. Welcome to this seventh episode of Lawyer On Air, I’m Catherine O’Connell. Today, I am joined by Yuka Hongo, who is a licensed attorney in Hawaii, California, New York, and the District of Columbia. In this episode, we take our legal listeners on a slightly different track as I bring you to the story of an interesting lawyer who has flown over the oceans from Japan and landed in Hawaii.
Yuka is a Japanese national who was indeed born in Japan, but then she went to the United States as a young child and was raised in a bilingual setting and graduated from a university in Los Angeles. Professionally Yuka has extensive experience working in both Japanese and English, and she easily glides between both languages navigating complicated legal transactions.
Yuka caught my eye as she is a specialist in a field that really helps people who are having pain, and she also helps them avoid such pain through her expertise. Put simply Yuka helps people manage all there is to deal with when a family member passes away. Let's face it, most people don't like thinking about death, so we procrastinate on planning for our estates early on in our lives. Many of our listeners are foreigners living in Japan or Japanese who have lived overseas and retain assets in the countries where they invested part of their lives. I often hear from them that what they worry about is protecting their assets after they are gone, but they're not really sure what to do first.
It was this experience of living in different countries that made Yuka acutely aware of having a place of residence in different parts of the world. And she has seen first hand the unfortunate dire consequences of having assets in various areas and dying without a proper estate plan in place. Assets can be tied up in court for months. It's certainly not every day we think about death and ensuring family members are left with ease after we pass away. Potentially this pandemic has brought this topic much closer to home for many of us seeking out a lawyer who can advise on wills and estates is tricky in both Japan and overseas.
I find Yuka to be an amazing lawyer because her expertise is in the specialist legal niche area of what we call estate law. I've done some estate law for Japanese in New Zealand many moons ago while working in the other areas of the law. I think it takes a special kind of personality and empathy to hone in and be an estate lawyer. Yuka guides families through the probate process in Hawaii, and she helps people create appropriate and effective estate plans to make sure their wishes are followed. She is a passionate attorney committed to helping clients avoid family battles and an elaborate probate process. When clients contact me for help with their wills and estate matters, I'm not able to help them myself, and I usually refer them to a couple of wills specialists in Japan. Yuka often works with such lawyers on the Japanese side when people have assets in both Japan and the US. When I talked to Yuka recently, I found her to be a dedicated and very humble person. She was very humble about the value of the work she does and I knew that we just had to hear Yuka’s story as there's so much wisdom locked up inside of her that needs to be told. I hope you will enjoy the unique story of Yuka Hongo and with that, I'm very happy to have Yuka as my guest today. Yuca, Aloha, and welcome to the show.
Yuka: Hello, Catherine. Thank you for having me on your show today.
Catherine: I’m really happy to have you, and I wanted to say, today we're going to talk about your career and moving from Japan to the US, how you balance both countries and cultures. Also what led you to set up your specialist estates practice in Hawaii, your tips about estate planning and some of the issues and challenges you may have faced as well as some advice for young lawyers. How does that sound?
Yuka: That sounds great Catherine, I'm really looking forward to talking to you today.
Catherine: Thank you so much. We're talking today online because you are in beautiful Honolulu and I'm in Tokyo and it’s the rainy season here, but next time you come to Japan and we can meet up in person, where would you like to go? What's your favorite wine bar or restaurant in Tokyo, or maybe you could even tell me about your favorite restaurant in Honolulu where you and I can go when I visit you one day.
Yuka: Do let me know when you visit Hawaii. But I was thinking about it and I like this place called House Without a Key, it's at the Halekulani hotel in Honolulu, sadly it’s not open for business yet because of COVID. It's an open bar, it's right by the beach and at night they have hula dancing and there are people who will play the ukulele. It's just like a nighttime show and you get to drink and enjoy the show at the same time.
Catherine: Wow. That sounds so much fun. What do you order when you go there? What kind of drink do you like to have?
Yuka: I always order the Pina Colada, but there are also lots of really interesting Hawaii drinks, like Blue Hawaii and such, I think it's really great. This place hosts a lot of tourists, they'll just stay at the hotel and they'll come to the bar at night and they can enjoy the show and drinks at the same time, so it's a really nice place. In Japan, I hang out at Ebisu a lot. There are lots of really good places, so I couldn't think of one particular place that I could say that I go to very often.
Catherine: Yeah, maybe we can discover a new place in Ebisu together and I look forward to ordering the Blue Hawaii when I come and see you in Honolulu, I can't wait.
Yuka: The Halekulani Hotel should open soon in the summer. I highly recommend that place, it's a very nice hotel in Honolulu.
Catherine: That's wonderful, I might even stay there. So I wanted to get into your early life and career background. You are a lawyer, I know you call yourselves obviously attorneys when you're in the states, but how do you introduce yourself to other people? Is it different when you are speaking to lawyers and to your clients who are not lawyers? How do you introduce yourself?
Yuka: I just say that I'm a lawyer, I'm a US licensed lawyer, and then they ask me what I'm doing, and I would say that I practice in the area of estate planning and estate administration. I guess I just tell them that I was educated in the United States and I have a legal degree here.
Catherine: I noticed on your LinkedIn profile that you have the name nomad, you call yourself a nomad. What does that mean to you?
Yuka: I moved to the United States when I was about 12 or 13 with my family, but my parents are Japanese. So I don't really consider myself Japanese American, but I am not entirely Japanese either because I didn't really spend a lot of time in Japan. I really like traveling to different places and I grew up in an international setting. So I like meeting people from different cultures and my wish was to be able to live in different parts of the world, not just Japan or the United States, it didn't quite work out so well. I grew up with different cultures, so I guess that's why I call myself a nomad.
Catherine: I love that. Going back to when you were a child, what did you want to be? Did you have some aspiration to become something when you grew up?
Yuka: I changed a lot I guess. I wanted to be a teacher or I wanted to do international business, so I was thinking more about getting an MBA maybe after college. I decided to go into law because I thought that might be more unique. My family does accounting. They're accountants and I should have become a CPA, but it didn't work out that way. I went to law school, but I thought that some sort of license would help me to get a job in other parts of the world, so I decided to do a law degree instead of an MBA.
Catherine: It's good though too, that you did something different to your parents. People sometimes do what one of their parents or both of their parents did, but it's also good to do something different and I can see law and accounting going together quite well. I'm sure there are times when they help you with your work, and then as a lawyer, you're also helping them with their business as well. Is that how it sometimes works with both of you and the Hongo family?
Yuka: I think it really does go together and I don't have a lot of knowledge of taxes. I can always find a CPA who helps me in that area. I like working networking with CPAs as well because they often like to refer their clients to me for estate planning.
Catherine: Yeah, I can see them dovetailing very nicely because you need to know a lot about tax when you're planning estates and things, and I can see that would be quite symbiotic for working together nicely, an ecosystem of accountants and lawyers working together, I find that in my practice as well here. So you left Japan at an early age and went to the US. I think you went to California and were educated perhaps on the West Coast there. Can you tell me a little bit more about that stage of your life? You said you were quite young, about 12, but what was it that led your family to move to America?
Yuka: My mother was always interested in living abroad and she also wanted to educate us in English. We started a family business in California in accounting, my mother and my sister and I just went to California and my father stayed in Japan. The three of us just moved there and we were only going to stay there for a relatively short time, but we ended up living there for 20 plus years so you can see how it worked out. Yeah, we didn't really leave and my mother might want to retire soon, but because of COVID, it has been very difficult for her to move back or go anywhere this year. So everything's on hold, but we're Americanized already so moving back to Japan would be a little bit difficult as well.
Catherine: 20 years is a long time. I think too, sometimes of myself here, 18 years in Japan, how it would be moving back to my home country. I don't think it's impossible, but it does take some adjustment. During your 20 years in California did you come back to Japan to live and work? Or was that 20 years taking in your study at university as well?
Yuka: I did work in Japan for a little bit after I graduated from law school. I had always wanted to live in Japan, even though I spent most of my life in the United States, because I'm Japanese, but Japan was foreign to me. I did some summer internships while I was in school in Japan and I really liked it, and I thought that I wanted to have the chance to work there. I worked in Japan for a while after school at PricewaterhouseCoopers. When I first went there, I just worked in the regular tax department. I had to do just regular translations from English to Japanese or vice versa and I did some tax work as well, but eventually, I moved to their outsourcing department where they started the corporate secretarial service. I would help by setting up companies in Japan, it was more legal work. After that, I decided to go back to the United States and I didn't go back to California, I went to Hawaii.
Catherine: Yeah. So I'm interested to know why you chose Hawaii because you had your roots shall we say in California? And you had your bar exam there. You had done that. So why was it Hawaii? I'm intrigued to know.
Yuka: My family has an accounting firm. My father started an office in Hawaii and I visited Hawaii with him after I left Japan and I really liked it, and it's very close to Japan. It's actually very similar to Los Angeles where I grew up, with warm weather, and the setting of the city is pretty similar to each other. If you fly to Honolulu from Tokyo or Osaka, it's pretty close and California's not too far either. I just noticed there were so many people coming from Japan to Hawaii, and I thought it was interesting that a lot of the Japanese people in Honolulu don't really live there. They live in Japan most of the time, but they might have a nice condominium in Honolulu and they might visit, once or twice a year. But in California, I felt like the Japanese people there actually had a green card to live there and they were permanent residents in California.
Catherine: Right, so quite different.
Yuka: So very different types of Japanese, and I thought I liked living in Japan and I like working with Japanese people. So when I came to Hawaii, I thought maybe I could try it out here.
Catherine: Sure, and did you qualify then, in Hawaii, did you choose to go to a law firm or choose to qualify in Hawaii after California? Is that how you did your process?
Yuka: Yes. I had to take the Hawaii state bar exam there. Hawaii is pretty strict, because it's an island. They're very cautious about letting people in from other states or from other countries. There are certain states, like for example, New York that will allow you to take only a part of the exam if you're already qualified in another state, but Hawaii doesn't allow that. So I had to study for everything again, and I had to take all parts of the exam and, I was like, why am I doing this? I'm so old already, but I did it anyway because I wanted to live there. Through that, I found employment at a small law firm in Honolulu, but it wasn't very Japanese oriented, they just had regular American clients. I thought I would just leave and start my own firm and that’s what I did.
Catherine: I didn't know that about Hawaii, that they were that strict, that you had to go back and do the whole exam. I think that shows how dedicated you really were because you wanted to live in Hawaii. It was really important for you that you did qualify because law was your thing and you weren't possibly going to change to be an accountant. So you did want to continue law and you were really positive and dedicated to getting the bar and you've glossed over that. To sit the bar exam again is a massive thing. If anyone's listening to this I did the UK bar exam and it wasn't the full exam, but it was enough for me when I was much older to do it again. So studying when you're older to do law, again is quite a challenge. Well done for doing that, but you also did two other bar exams as well after that, is that right? New York and District of Columbia.
Yuka: Actually, I was able to waive into the District of Columbia, if you're qualified in California, you just need to work for a couple of years before you can get waived into the District of Columbia.
Catherine: So no exam, you can just be waived in as you say.
Yuka: Yes I was able to wave in so I'm really happy about that. Then after that, the admission to the DC bar will enable you to waive into the New York bar eventually, so I did that. I only took two exams in my lifetime, so you might not be so impressed.
Catherine: No no, same as me, and many people are impressed when they hear that. I think two exams, they’re massive exams as well, California and Hawaii. Now you've educated me on the fact that you have to do it from the very beginning, so I understand that. Many Japanese lawyers go to the US and study and they do get one or other of the bar exams and they usually come back to Japan and practice even if it is a California or New York lawyer, for example. But you're different because you decided to stay in Hawaii after you qualified. Were there other Japanese people around you, who did that as well? Or were you quite unique being a Japanese person with Hawaii and California bar and staying in Hawaii?
Yuka: I think there are people. There's actually a lot of the big law firms in Honolulu, they always hire Japanese speaking attorneys and paralegals, because there's so much Japanese work here. So I do know some other Japanese speaking attorneys in town and they might also be qualified in another state other than Hawaii as well.
Catherine: Sure. But they probably are not doing estate law. You are probably one of the few who are Japanese doing estate law in Hawaii.
Yuka: Yes, I actually believe so. I think most Japanese attorneys I know do corporate work or immigration. There aren't too many Japanese speaking attorneys. I get asked a lot about divorce and such too. There aren’t too many Japanese speaking attorneys who do divorce or anything like that. So I guess, yeah, it might be a little bit unique. There probably are people who do estate planning who do speak Japanese, but if you work for a bigger law firm in town you might do more corporate work.
Catherine: Did any of those larger law firms invite you to go and join them, when they heard about you having your specialist estates practice? Did they say, come and join us and develop an estate practice within our law firm? Did you ever have that?
Yuka: Oh, unfortunately, no.
Catherine: Maybe fortunately,
Yuka: Maybe fortunately. But yeah I've just been practicing by myself and sometimes I wonder if I were at a bigger firm maybe certain things might've been better.
Catherine: Yeah. We never know. Yeah. We never know that. So when you were a younger lawyer, you wanted to be working in the international arena, so did you also want to work in a larger law firm at one stage?
Yuka: It’s what a lot of law students aspire to at the beginning. I would have liked to, but those big firms are really competitive and I was not able to get into those, so I had to be more creative with my career, I think.
Catherine: Yeah, and do you think that for the law students who are listening to you today, if they think about aspiring to be in a big firm, do you think there are also the advantages of doing what you have done and create your own really specific area of law and make yourself quite well known for doing that? Would you give that kind of tip as well to a young law student? If they were listening today or sitting in front of you, would you help them to think of a different pathway, and as you said to be creative?
Yuka: Yes, because there aren’t too many legal jobs available and the coveted ones get taken really quickly. So in that case, you have to be more creative. I'm really happy with estate planning, there are lots of attorneys who just have their own practice and it caters to families. You don't have to work at a big law firm that might work in areas like M&A or certain things where you can rack up more revenue, but you need a team to work on it. With estate planning, you can do it by yourself and I really like the flexibility and time schedule that I have when I work. I know at big law firms, you have to do billable hours and show up at work at a certain time every day. I think it's very prestigious, but it can also be very difficult. So I'm really grateful now that I can manage my own time and schedule with my own practice. I can work closely with families and help them with their estate planning and probate and such, but different people like different things. Some people really thrive at bigger law firms, and I think that would be really great too, but if that's not an option for you, I think working at a smaller firm or like at a non-legal job or having your own practice would be good as well.
Catherine: Yeah, I like that idea, and I think as you mentioned, thriving, we can thrive at the law firm that's large and also thrive doing something else that's more perhaps suitable for our personality or what we feel inside. I'm interested to know, you said you'd been at a small firm in Hawaii, but then broke away to set up your own practice. What was it that led you to break away and do things on your own? I'm really intrigued to know how your family and your friends and other clients reacted to you setting up your own practice. What did they say?
Yuka: My family was really worried about me when I wanted to go out on my own. They just thought that I had a stable job at PwC in Japan, and they were like, why are you going to Hawaii where you've never lived before, and now you want to start your own practice? Yeah, so I think they were just worried because they're my family. I grew up in a bilingual setting and my Japanese and my English are pretty okay, and if I just worked for somebody else they might not understand that part about me. They might just have me do all of the work in English, or they might not utilize my bilingual capabilities to the fullest if you know what I mean?
Catherine: Yes I do, they might not understand your value, right? The language capability that you have in both languages, and you're totally fluent in English and going between both languages, that's an asset. Utilizing that in your own practice in your own way is really a way that you can show your true value. It doesn't mean the other people don't care about you being bilingual, or they just don't recognize it as a real asset. So you're using that now. Your typical client, I think you've mentioned that a little bit before. In my mind, you have these regular clients, perhaps who are Americans who come to you. But now you're talking about your bilingual capability, I think you may have Japanese clients who have, perhaps those people you talked about before who have traveled to Hawaii, fell in love, bought a timeshare or a condo, and they keep going back there each year. Is that the kind of typical client avatar, shall we say that you have?
Yuka: Yes you're exactly right. Most of my clients are Japanese citizens who live in Japan most of the time during the year, but they might have a timeshare or a condominium in Honolulu and they might come here once or twice a year. I think if I had lived in California and had practiced there, I might have had more clients of families that have lived in California for a long time, they're all permanent residents or citizens, and they lived there. But the Japanese people who come to Hawaii are a little bit different. Because it's so close to Asia there are lots of people who just have a bank account or a condominium or a timeshare in Hawaii, but they otherwise live in Asia most of the year.
Catherine: Have you had any challenges along the way with being a woman with your own firm in Hawaii?
Yuka: If I were doing more corporate work, or if I were in other fields that are more male dominated, it might've been difficult, but estate planning is more for families. I think people accept me when I tell them that I do estate planning and I think some people appreciate being able to talk to a female lawyer about those types of issues as well. In other fields at bigger law firms in a more corporate field, it might be a little bit more male dominated and if you're a female, you have to work extra hard to prove yourself. Because I worked for myself, I don't really encounter those types of problems as much.
Catherine: Yeah, would you have any tips for any people who are listening, who are thinking about setting up their own practice?
Yuka: Just do it even if you're worried because I was really worried at the beginning. My employment in Hawaii didn’t work out and I had to just make the decision to go out on my own and it was very difficult. At first, I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a lot of things and after a while I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to get any clients. That's when I started my own practice and I didn't have very much at the beginning, but I was eventually able to get more business as I did more seminars to people in Japan and in Hawaii and I made more marketing efforts. I was really hesitant to do them at the beginning, then I realized that nobody really cares about me too much. When you actually do seminars or when you go out to network with people, I found that some people were pretty helpful and I was worried that I may not have the best background because I didn't get to work at big law firms so I don't have a prestigious background. But the clients who came, just want help for their legal matters. So I found that people don't care about me as much as I thought, and people accept me and they do retain me if it works out between us. My tip is to just put your feet in the water and just do it if you want to start your own practice.
Catherine: Great. I think when you're saying no one cares about you it's thinking about yourself. You think that people care about the fact that you should have gone to a big law firm, or you may think that internally of yourself, but actually it didn't matter. People do accept you for what you have as your capability to help them. Also your empathy, it shows very strongly to me that you have this caring about other people, which sometimes, maybe not, maybe, corporate lawyers may not have that. So that is your secret source for being able to help other people is the fact that you perhaps didn't do international law in big firms. Maybe that's the reason why you are so good at what you're doing now is that you've found that essential humanness within you is the key to being successful in your business. I think that's what's helping you, Yuka.
Yuka: Oh, thank you, Catherine. Yeah, that sounds very positive.
Catherine: Yeah, I think it's very true because sometimes we think we have to be all these different things, but there are many ways to lead a lawyer life, and there are many ways to be a lawyer. Not just one way, and there's not one path of experience. That's why I truly love your path and wanted people to hear about the way that we can do law differently as a female lawyer, as a female lawyer owner of a business. What would you like to have known before you went on your own? So now you are at this five or so years on what do you wish you had known before you went out on your own practice?
Yuka: Maybe to hone my marketing skills a little bit more, I think you need to do your marketing nowadays, even if you work for somebody, but you have to do it more if you are out on your own. Obviously no business will come to you if you don't do the marketing. I would have liked to, when I was younger, have learned a bit more on how to market myself, or to network more and I didn't learn those skills. Law school doesn't really teach you that. As I was talking to you about it last week, I had to hire a business coach to help me with these things. I wish I had been able to work on those areas a little bit more when I was younger.
Catherine: You’ve hit the point that we don't get taught this in law school. We learn how to read the law, how to interpret cases, how to apply them to practical fact situations. We really are not taught the business of running a law firm, the business of being a lawyer and we learn it perhaps on the job, but even on the job, we're continuing to advise on the law to clients, and so we're not really learning marketing. I know when I had my first exposure to business development and going out to talk to clients or potential clients, I loved doing that and almost loved it more than doing the law, shall we say. It is very important too to learn it but I don't think there's a time for regretting that we didn't learn it. It's very much a day to day thing that we pick up as we go, but I certainly feel Yuka if we were back at law school, it would be really fantastic to have business marketing as a subject or a paper that we could take, but even so maybe we wouldn't have learned that much, or maybe we would have been put off from the business of law. I guess it takes some time for us to be in practice and then realize the importance of it and make it something that we do ourselves. You've done that, you hired a business coach. I'm in a couple of masterminds as well, I'm learning how to do that, a couple of other groups where I am learning how to market. What did your business coach tell you a couple of things that the business coach has helped you with for marketing? Did he tell you, go and do webinars, or what advice did he give you? A couple of concrete things that he told you.
Yuka: I've worked with my very first business coach that I worked with when I was making no money when I first started my own law firm. He was a man who coaches lawyers in Chicago. I didn't even have a LinkedIn page at that point, so he taught me the importance of having your profile on LinkedIn and putting posts out there and doing likes in posting comments for other people's posts. He said that's actually very helpful. I made my LinkedIn profile and you can't just have your picture and your bio on it, you have to write something about yourself, so you noted the part about me being a nomad on LinkedIn, I wrote that by myself. So you actually need a description of what you do, something that will catch people's eye, but he taught me the importance of how Facebook and Twitter can help too, but LinkedIn is actually really good for businesses. He taught me that's the only thing that you really need in terms of social media marketing. So I did the LinkedIn and also, I didn't even have my practice organized, but he taught me the importance of putting all of the contact information for every client that I've had or every person that I've met through networking and I also put your information as well. He said that's actually like a gold mine having that contact list and then I sent out newsletters every month to all of my contacts. It's really important to have that contact list. It's all of your previous clients, your current clients, and all of the people that you've ever met who might potentially be your next client who's in your data system. He helped me get organized.
Then I worked with another coaching service recently, it's called How To Manage A Small Law Firm, they're a pretty big company in Florida. They just coach lawyers because lawyers don't know how to run a business. I worked with them and they were really helpful too, but they actually encouraged me not to just have a one man operation. I have my law firm and I should eventually hire a secretary paralegal, another associate who will replace me in doing the work and then it should operate like a regular business, like with a CEO and a manager who manages the operations of the business. They taught me to build it more like a business and not just a solo practitioner firm that a lot of lawyers have.
Catherine: Right, a lot of lovely juicy information there, setting up your LinkedIn profile, and as you said, nomad did catch my eye, so you did a great job there. That goldmine, he just put it so properly and correctly, there's really a goldmine to have all those contacts in there. As you said, they can be potential clients or they are people who can refer you to your potential clients. Getting organized and having not just a one man band, making sure that you're actually running it like a business as a CEO. I like to think of myself as a CEO as well, and I have a CEO day where I do everything on the business instead of working in the business and have that dedicated, I call it CEO day so that I am concentrating on how I am with the CEO hat on. I certainly recommend that as well, Yuka, that's really wonderful. I'd love to know a bit more too, just about your routine, how you get yourself focused in the morning and how you wind up in the evening. Can you tell me a little bit more about your day?
Yuka: I'm pretty flexible. I have an assistant at the office, but she doesn't come in every day. During COVID in Hawaii, lawyers were deemed to be essential workers, so they were allowed to work, even during the lockdown. I actually was able to go to the office and work sometimes. Nowadays I maybe work a couple of days a week at home and then a couple of days I would just go to the office and work. In the evenings, pre-COVID days in Waikiki where my office is, there are lots of happy hours so I would go to a happy hour sometimes, or my current hobby is ballroom dancing. I go to ballroom dancing lessons or to their dance parties, so that's the fun thing that I do.
Catherine: I love that. I'd love to see you in action. So you get dressed in the ballroom gown and all the makeup and all of the rest of that, that goes with the ballroom dancing. Do you go into competitions as well?
Yuka: Oh no, I'm not that good, I just started.
Catherine: Why did you choose ballroom dance? There are lots of things you could do, what was it about that?
Yuka: Yeah, I think people will be like, oh Yuka’s in Hawaii, but she doesn't surf or do things like that. But a lot of people here like golfing, which a lot of Japanese people like to do, and there are lots of free places to play golf, which is nice here. I didn't get really hooked on it. I found a ballroom dancing class near where I live and I just signed up for it. They have lots of events, like almost every day of the week, so you can just go to the ones that you like. It's really fun, but I know I should be taking advantage of the weather here more by taking on far more outdoor activities.
Catherine: How does it make you feel when you dance?
Yuka: It's great. Initially, I didn't think I would be able to do it, but they make the steps really easy for everybody. We do the Foxtrot or the Waltz or the Salsa and I could go social dancing somewhere else when things open up more after COVID I guess.
Catherine: That's so nice, I love that, and I'm really glad you've got that hobby to go into. I don't think it's compulsory to have something to do with the sea when you live by the sea, but each for his own and each for her own, I think on that one. Do you have anything like a word of the year or theme of the year you use to guide you throughout the year, something that centers you, that you think about? My theme is I think about things now intentionally, so I will make a really good intention to do something or not do something. That's the word that's guiding me through my year, this year 2021.
Yuka: I guess with COVID and everything I have realized life is too short. I kind of hesitated, I would just procrastinate on doing things, but if there's something I really want to do, I should try to do it now and the limitations from COVID taught me a lot about it. So when I actually had the chance to do the things pre COVID, I didn't do them, and now I cannot do them because there are so many restrictions. So the theme is maybe when I want to do something I should try to do it at that time or try to enjoy something at the moment.
Catherine: Yeah, that's it, I think that's really nice. COVID unfortunately has taught us many bad things, but many good things. I think COVID has been a real lesson for us in how we can act and I really liked that you've got that, not procrastinating, doing things. Life is too short and I think that it really is a mantra to keep us going. Let's move through to our last part of the chat today, which is when I ask you six questions that you give me some quick answers to. But before we do that is there anything that we've said today that you'd like to re-emphasize or is there anything that I've missed out on that you'd really like to talk about Yuka?
Yuka: It was really easy to talk to you and I discovered things that I didn't realize before by talking to you.
Catherine: I think that's wonderful. One thing I did want to ask you was probably the best advice you received from anyone ever? I've had some really interesting guests provide some great advice that has guided them throughout. Is there anything that you can remember, as a piece of advice that was good for you starting off your career or in your life?
Yuka: It's what my father suggested to me, that I go into estate planning when I started my firm in Hawaii, and I think it was a really good area for me now that I think about it. It's good for female attorneys too, and there were a lot of other work areas of law or tax that I worked in before that weren’t a very good fit for me, but I feel like the estate part was a good fit for me. My father maybe knew me well enough, or he was just business savvy, and he gave me that good advice I think.
Catherine: Probably both, he knew you well enough, and also he's business savvy. He's running his own business. Why do you think estate law is a good fit for you?
Yuka: If I were doing litigation and such, then I would have to be really aggressive or contentious. But I think with estate planning, I just get to help families do their estate planning or estate administration. I don't have to be extremely loud or anything, and it's a very peaceful area of practice I think. I like that and it's something that times like these, like during COVID, people might think about their estate planning and such. I actually didn't get much business during COVID last year. During the lockdown, my business kind of stopped and I was like, oh, what's going to happen. But at the end of the day, I don't think it'll really go out of business ever so I think I can be in business for a long time as well.
Catherine: I think you're right. It won't go out of business. So I really liked that. I hope your father and your friends and family and the two coaches that you've had do listen to this so they can hear you speak about them and the inspiration they have been and the help they've been on your career. I think that would be fantastic. I'm going to move into the final round of six questions for you, Yuka. The first one is if I was to give you 1 million yen in Japanese cash, I'm not sure how much that is in USD right now, but where in Japan or where in Hawaii would you spend that? Some destination or maybe a shop that you would go to.
Yuka: My hope was to visit Southeast Asia pre-COVID, so I was wanting to use it for travel. I haven't been to too many Southeast Asian countries and now that we're so restricted, I just want to go somewhere that I've never been.
Catherine: That sounds wonderful to me. How about your book reading or podcast listening that you may have done recently? Something you've listened to or something that you have read that you really recommend?
Yuka: My first business coach was Steve Fretzin. He is the business coach for lawyers who practice in Chicago and he does a podcast similar to yours.
Catherine: Be That Lawyer.
Yuka: Yeah. You know him. Yeah.
Catherine: I know him. I listen to his podcast and I hope Steve would have listened to this one. So yes, I listen to him a lot.
Yuka: So I think he's really great on LinkedIn. I don't work with him anymore, but he gave me some really good advice when I worked with him and I do listen to his podcast. Yeah, his guests are really helpful too and I was just listening to the business advice, so I wanted to suggest it on this podcast.
Catherine: Thank you, yeah. So you can sign up for his podcast, Be That Lawyer, and I listen to him when I go out on my soul strolls when I'm walking around or going somewhere. I really like Steve's approach to his podcast and his teachings for lawyers. He's not a lawyer, but he's worked with lawyers and I think it goes beyond private practice lawyers and in-house lawyers, anybody who is a lawyer can learn from Steve. So I'm really glad to hear that you are listening to him and that you worked with him. That's fantastic. So you're on an island there in Hawaii so maybe this next question doesn't really work for you because you're not a city dweller. My question is, if you were actually stuck on a desert island, perhaps if you'd got to one of your South East Asia islands and you could take one person, one item, and one food, what would it be?
Yuka: This is a really hard question. I have a really sweet tooth. I think I might take a cheesecake or something.
Catherine: Good, but sweet stuff is nice. When you are retiring for the evening, what's beside you on your bedside table?
Yuka: I guess my blankets or my stuffed animals.
Catherine: That's so nice. One bonus question, something that other people don't know about you, Yuka. Maybe ballroom dancing was new for some people to hear today, but what else might there be that some others may not know about you?
Yuka This was hard. I was going to go with the ballroom dancing as well.
Catherine: Well let's go with that, the bonus that most people may not know about you is that you do ballroom dancing, lovely. Yuka I really want to thank you so much for sharing your story today and all your tips and nuggets of advice and guidance, and it really was so lovely to connect with you in this way. Thank you so much.
Yuka: Thank you, Catherine, for having me on your podcast. I really enjoy talking to you today.
Catherine: So how can people connect with you? Is LinkedIn the best way to connect with them?
Yuka: Ah, yes, I have LinkedIn, and then I have Facebook and Twitter. I put some articles in Japanese on it, but I'm working with a new website coordinator, so they might be revamping those sites. My website's going to be new as well, and then you can send me something through my website as well, or by email. If you or anybody comes to Hawaii and wants to visit me, you're welcome to visit my office in Waikiki as well.
Catherine: Oh, that sounds fantastic. Love to do that. I might try and bring you some cheesecake when I do that. We'll put all your contact details in the show notes and congratulations too, on your new website launching. It will be exciting to see that, let us know so we can promote that for you as well. So I'm finished up here. We've had this wonderful conversation. I'm really glad you're my seventh guest in this first season of Lawyer On Air. Thank you for your honesty, and being someone in the profession who really is kind and empathetic and helping people to plan their estates and avoid pain for themselves and their family. Thank you for sharing your journey and for all my listeners, please do LIKE this episode, subscribe to Lawyer On Air, and we can now offer you the opportunity to drop us a short review by voicemail. So you can go onto the website and leave me a voicemail and we can listen to that later. I love hearing actual listeners' voices tell us how they felt about the show. So please go ahead. Do all of that. Listen and lead your inspired life as a wonderful lady lawyer. That's all for now. So I'll see you on the next episode.
Cheers. Kampai and bye for now.
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Lawyer on Air was the winner of the Bronze Award in the “Best Podcast by a Kiwi Abroad Category” in the New Zealand Podcast Awards 2021.
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