EPISODE 56

Wookie attended ASIJ from the fifth to the eighth grade (1997-2001) before completing high school at St. Paul's School, a boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire.

Wookie then attended Yale University, receiving a B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics in 2009. After two years teaching high school English and journalism in DC Public Schools through Teach For America, Wookie matriculated at Harvard Law School, from which he earned his J.D. in 2014.

Wookie is currently the Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, where he works to defend people’s civil rights and civil liberties through litigation, lobbying, public education, and other forms of advocacy. Among the issues Wookie works on are the criminalization of poverty, bail reform, policing, reproductive freedom, gender equity, and freedom of expression.

Before joining the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, Wookie was an associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP in Washington, D.C., where he litigated high-stakes business disputes involving things like advanced high strength steel, table saw safety technology, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. While there, Wookie also maintained an active pro bono practice, including representing undocumented Latino immigrants in challenging a landlord’s discriminatory rental practices under the Fair Housing Act. Wookie also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Catherine C. Blake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Wookie and his wife currently live in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. In his free time, Wookie trains for and competes in 100-mile trail races, surfs in Waikiki, and otherwise takes advantage of the many opportunities for outdoor exploration in Hawaiʻi.

Timestamp

1:03 - Introductions

3:07 - American Boarding school vs International schools, deciding to leave the international school scene for America

7:22 - Challenges of settling into American boarding school as an international student

13:34 - Deciding to work for Teach for America after graduating from Yale

18:28 - Interest in equity and civil rights rooted from Yale years when studying Ethics-Politics-Economics (essentially, political philosophy)

22:28 - Harvard v Yale

26:20 - Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP - the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill case

29:12 - Digitization of documents in court cases

32:03 - Deciding to move out "West" a shift to Hawaii and the ACLU - and the effects of a near-death coma experience in Colorado

42:10 - Going from a coma in July to a 100K race in December - a miraculous recovery

45:45 - the logistics of running a 29-hour race

51:28 - the ACLU - the most recent case he is working on in Hawaii

55:41 - the ACLU - prison reform and justice reform

59:43 - What is to come