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Doug Chin is a director at the Honolulu law firm, Starn O’Toole Marcus & Fisher, where his practice focuses on litigation and administrative law. He was named by Best Lawyers in America in 2023 as the Lawyer of the Year in Civil Rights Law in Hawaii. He has also been named to The Best Lawyers in America list in the practice areas of Commercial Litigation, Government Relations, and Administrative/Regulatory Law.
Chin’s extensive career in public service includes serving as Hawaii Lieutenant Governor in 2018, Hawaii Attorney General from 2015-2018, Honolulu Managing Director from 2010-2013, and as a prosecutor for 15 years. In 2017, the Hawaii State Bar Association recognized him as a “Champion for Social Justice” for being the first attorney general in the nation to obtain an injunction against the President’s second and third executive orders banning travel from Muslim countries, a case that received national exposure and was eventually heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Chin is currently the Chair of the Honolulu Police Commission and also serves on the boards of the Leadership Center for Attorney General Studies, Hawaii Book and Music Festival, Easter Seals Hawaii, and American Judicature Society. The son of Chinese immigrants, Chin graduated from Stanford University and received his law degree from the University of Hawaii.
ASSOCIATE JUSTICE Part-time Associate Justice, Supreme Court, Republic of
Palau January 2013 to present
ASSOCIATE JUDGE Intermediate Court of Appeals, State of Hawaiʻi October 2000 to December 2016
CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, 1984-2000
Partner in Partington & Foley 1989-2000
Former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi, 1984-1987
Adjunct Professor of Civil Rights at the William S. Richardson School of Law, 1991-1996
Drafted rules and regulations of the Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission, 1990, and the Hawaiʻi Paroling Authority, 1992
Served as counsel in numerous civil rights cases of public interest in both federal and state courts including Baehr v. Lewin (Miike).
Retired Justice Levinson’s nearly 50 years of legal experience include a one-year clerkship with the Hawai`i Supreme Court, seventeen years in private practice, three years as a circuit court judge (Criminal Division) of the Hawai`i First Circuit Court, and seventeen years as an Associate Justice of the Hawai`i Supreme Court, from which he retired at the end of 2008. During his tenure on the Court, he authored 271 published opinions, of which 231 were published opinions of the court, including Baehr v. Lewin (1993), which was the first appellate decision in American history to hold that a state’s marriage laws were presumptively unconstitutional for discriminatorily prohibiting same sex couples from marrying. He also authored numerous opinions addressing the lawful limits of governmental intrusion into the private affairs of individuals, the legitimacy of police interrogations and searches and seizures, and other related subjects.
He was the Court’s liaison to the Hawai`i State Bar Association and the Hawai`i Justice Foundation and served as chair and member of various commissions and task forces pertaining to the Hawai`i Penal Code, the Code of Judicial Conduct, drug policy, and jury innovations. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El for ten years and has been actively involved in the Hawai`i Speech League and the Center for Civic Education’s “We the People” program. He received the 2006 Allies for Justice Award from the American Bar Association’s Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities and the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, the 2010 Champions of Justice Award from the Hawai`i State Bar Association, and the 2013 Equality Hawaii Lifetime Achievement Award and Hawaii United for Marriage Advocacy Awards. From October 2009 through May 2017, he served as a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii and was a board member of Equality Hawaii, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, from 2010 through 2013.
Born in Puerto Rico, raised in NYC
B.A. City College of New York
J.D. New York University School of Law
Attorney admitted in Hawaii and New York
Concentration in Domestic Relations Law
Currently serving:
President American Civil Liberties Union-Hawaii Board of Directors
President Friends of Kids First Board of Directors
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