Looking back on his tenure as the nation’s first Chinese American state attorney general, 1973年的大卫·路易对政府的内部运作进行了坦率的描述, 政治, 还有法律
1973年的大卫·路易已经进入职业生涯32年了 2010年成为私人执业民事审判律师, 当时他被夏威夷新当选的州长提名, 尼尔阿伯克龙比, 成为州检察长. “It was the equivalent of taking a high-speed elevator to the penthouse executive floor,路易写道. “我即将执掌夏威夷最大的律师事务所, 有185名律师, 数百名员工, 7000万美元的年度预算, and the responsibility to provide legal counsel to everyone who worked for the state.”
从司法部长的办公桌上—Louie’s newly published memoir of his experiences as the country’s first Chinese American state attorney general—takes its name from the historic koa wood desk in his office in the state capitol. 但当路易走进他的办公室, 这张桌子年久失修, 正如他在回忆录的序言中所写:
“八英尺长，四英尺宽, it had an unusual design of intricate woodwork and brass hardware that said old school. 它有点扭曲, 黄铜盘子失去了光泽, 桌子的某些部分丢失或用非传统材料代替, 不小心. 漆成深紫檀色，因年代久远而暗淡无光, 但有些地方的红色油漆已经被削掉了, 呈现出可阿树的金棕色, 一种夏威夷特有的硬木，因其美丽而受到珍视.”
The desk gave Louie a front-row seat for viewing—and shaping—the inner workings of government. In 从司法部长的办公桌上 (Legacy Isle Publishing), Louie recalls the landmark cases of his four years in office. “同性婚姻合法化, settling 30-year-old claims by Native Hawaiians as well as defending Hawaiian rights at the U.S. 最高法院, 执行刑事法律, 保护消费者, and protecting the environment were just some of the wide-ranging issues we tackled on my watch,他写道。. (还有关于奥巴马总统1983年出生证明的问题, 他在书中提到了什么.) “It certainly changed the way I thought about government, 政治, 还有法律.”
“Restoring the desk paralleled my own journey of discovery and education about our government,路易写道。, 他和妻子住在檀香山, 约翰娜. (Side note: He also made the wooden koa bowls that adorn his desk in the above photo.) “As I watched the desk being transformed, I also changed my perspective of government.”
作为司法部长, “我进入了夏威夷州政府的高级委员会,路易说。, who undertook the memoir as a means of making sense of the experience—“to encapsulate and summarize it and put it into a meaningful logical order. 州长很客气地让我进入了他的核心圈子. 我得到了一个席位，我学到了很多不为人知的东西. 我真的认为这是最好的工作.”
有时，路易在他的回忆录中写道， “我一直在思考(有时会惊讶地)我是如何走到今天的.他的祖父说, 路易阿来, migrated to the United States in 1882 from a small village in rural southern China a few months before the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act by the U.S. Congress, which shut the country’s door to Chinese immigrants for more than 60 years. 他的父亲保罗是家里第一个大学毕业生. 在哈佛神学院毕业后, he became a Presbyterian minister and later joined the staff of the 洛杉矶 County Human Relations Commission, 与亚裔美国人社区合作.
David Louie grew up in Sylmar and followed in brother Stephen ’71’s footsteps in enrolling at Oxy. 他说:“我一开始学的是数学，但最后学的是社会学。. 大三的时候, 与社会学教授克莱尔·格雷厄姆密切合作, Louie received an international fellowship for nine months of independent study and research in Hong Kong.
“I became increasingly interested in learning about my heritage and identity and began studying more about Asia,他在回忆录中写道. “I had never consciously put a name on or thought about my experience as a person of color growing up in white communities, 因为这正是我所经历的. But this contact with the Asian American movement made me so much more conscious of my identity as a Chinese American, 作为一个有色人种的整个问题, and my understanding of the civil rights movement and the quest for social justice.”
当他在香港时, Louie became friends with a group of Chinese American students who invited him to join them on a trip to the People’s Republic of China, 紧随尼克松总统的“乒乓外交”之后.”“我们在中国巡演了两个月, 感谢中国政府, 然后我写了我的论文.路易回忆道.
在他完成伯克利大学的法律学位后, 传统观点认为, you’ve got to go to a big law firm and learn the craft from people who really know how to practice it,路易说。. 这根本不是真的. 有很多优秀的律师都是社区律师, who have been solo practitioners who have found their way and just done great things. 但那是我当时遵循的智慧.”
因此，路易开始在后来成为凯斯的地方工作 & Lynch, one of the oldest law firms in Honolulu, and then formed his own firm in 1988. 他曾于2001年担任夏威夷州律师协会主席, 并在多个委员会和政府委员会任职多年, 但他从未认真考虑过以公共服务为职业. 他说:“我当时有点胖，有点笨，而且很喜欢做我正在做的事情。.
当阿伯克龙比的竞选主席和路易的老朋友, 比尔金子, 我首先找他，想让他担任司法部长, “一开始我拒绝了,他补充道. Ultimately, he saw the position as “an extraordinary opportunity to contribute as well as learn. What I found was the public service and working with others to improve our communities is tremendously rewarding and educational.”
接受这份工作后， 路易说，他得到的最好的建议来自于查尔斯·布雷耶(Charles Breyer).S. 加州北部地区法官. “We had dinner, and Chuck told me this story about this legendary lawyer in California. 我忘了那个人的名字. 那是一个像克拉克·克利福德(Clark clifford)那样的人——州长的心腹. 帕特·布朗，渣滓们的军师. 他是一个典型意义上的调停者——非常聪明，非常有成就.
当人们找他帮忙的时候, 他会把它写在一个随身携带的小记事本上. 然后他的目标是尽快做点什么, because if you pick up the phone and call somebody and actually get something done, this person will think you are a magician and will have a huge debt of gratitude to you. 但如果你等上两周或一个月，感激之情的曲线就会下降.他说，从那以后，“我就尽可能快地做事。.”
2014年8月，Abercrombie在民主党州长初选中失利, “很明显，我必须继续前进,路易写道. Even though he had only committed to a single term of service, he had grown to like the job. 大选之后, 他“天真地对当选州长大卫·伊格抱有一点小小的希望”, 民主党同僚, 也许会有兴趣让他留下来, 但他很快发现事实并非如此.
Making the transition back to private practice “was very daunting and difficult,” Louie admits. When he took the attorney general job, he had to resign all of his clients in short order. “当旋转木马停下来的时候，我就想，‘好吧，下车吧.’我想，‘现在怎么办? 我没有客户了，我可以回原来的律所，但我们再看看.’
“当律师就像当小店主, 因为所有的客户在很多方面都是私人的,他补充道. “很多次, people at a certain level hire a lawyer for your skillset—they don’t care what your law firm is. I was still young enough that I couldn't retire, and I didn't really feel like retiring anyway.最终，路易成为了杉田小林的高级合伙人 & 火奴鲁鲁的上帝. “幸运的是, I had enough friends and acquaintances that I've garnered my fair share of work and I got going again. 但第一年是令人担忧的.”
回到私人执业已经七年多了, 路易在司法部长办公室拥有私有权益, 确保他们做得很好, 确保他们完成了任务,他说. “I'm primarily a litigator but because I do some lobbying work”—for a client list that includes Meta and Geico—“I need to keep tabs on what's going on in government and who the players are.”
两年多以前, Louie found himself looking back on his stint as attorney general and floated the idea of committing his memories to print. Noting the paucity of memoirs by attorneys general overall (“I think there are about five”), 他希望他的书能让读者对政府的运作有所了解. 在写回忆录的时候, 你试着去理解这种体验, 这是其中的一部分, 也是为了我自己的目的, 只是为了封装和总结它，并把它放入一个有意义的逻辑顺序.”
在路易上交手稿之后, 我的出版商对我说, “如果你有一些‘亲嘴和泄密’的话，你的书会卖得更好。,他笑着回忆道. “但我仍然是一名执业律师，我在立法机构游说. 在我的职业生涯中，我明白过河拆桥并不是一个好办法. 我还学到了，在晋升的过程中，你应该对别人好, 希望他们下来的时候能对你好."
