Kauai gets new
Fifth Circuit judge

LIHUE » A week after Kauai officials dedicated the county's new courthouse, a new judge was sworn in to help fill it.

Kauai native Kathleen Watanabe, surrounded by family and friends, was welcomed home as Fifth Circuit Court judge at the $42 million complex yesterday.

Gov. Linda Lingle and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Moon attended the proceedings. The event was so well attended that Kauai Mayor Bryan Baptiste spent most of the ceremony in the standing-room-only crowd that spilled into the hallway.

After Watanabe was sworn in by Moon, she thanked relatives, friends and others in attendance and said she is "really excited" to start working.

"I'm honored to serve the people of Kauai," she said.

Watanabe served as director of the state Department of Human Resources Development from January 2003 until she was picked for the position vacated when Fifth Circuit Judge Clifford Nakea retired.

She has worked in public service for most of her career, including in the attorney general's office, as a hearings officer for the Hawaiian Homelands Commission, a social worker for the Department of Health, a guidance counselor for Kamehameha Schools and Alu Like, a tutor with the state Department of Education and a law clerk with the state House of Representatives.

Watanabe is a graduate of the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Puget Sound and Kapaa High School.