Miyoko T. Pettit-Toledo

Miyoko T. Pettit-Toledo ‘15 is a proud graduate of the William S. Richardson School of Law, where she joined the faculty in August 2022 as an Assistant Professor of Law.  She currently teaches courses on civil procedure and legal writing.

Professor Pettit-Toledo’s scholarship merges legal theory, research and analysis with frontline advocacy for civil and human rights as well as social justice—something she learned and took to heart as the inaugural Korematsu Scholar Advocate while in law school.  In particular, her work explores reconciliation initiatives and reparations for historic injustice (with an emphasis on the intersection of race and gender).  Her scholarship also focuses on developments in the rules of civil procedure—at the federal and state level—and how amended rules may promote or hinder access to justice (in concept and in practice).  She is currently working on a law review article focused on electronic discovery, which analyzes the new Hawai‘i Rules of Civil Procedure (effective January 1, 2022) and 2015 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and calls on rule makers (through amended rules or court rulings) to set forth a clear affirmative duty to preserve electronically stored information that embraces the principle of proportionality.

Following her graduation from law school, Professor Pettit-Toledo clerked for the Honorable Richard W. Pollack, then-Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawai‘i and the Honorable Susan Oki Mollway, Senior District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii.  She then worked as a civil litigator with McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP, where her practice focused primarily on complex commercial litigation, appellate litigation, employment disputes, and debtors’ and creditors’ rights.  While in private practice, she successfully argued a case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and also completed a bench trial before the First Circuit Court for the State of Hawai‘i.  Most recently, Professor Pettit-Toledo served as the Executive Director and Managing Attorney for Maximum Legal Services Corporation, a local Hawai‘i 501(c)(3) non-profit specializing in trust and estate administration and conservatorship and guardianship services for people across the State of Hawai‘i.

For her accomplishments, Professor Pettit-Toledo has been recognized as a Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch for outstanding professional excellence in the areas of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Appellate Practice, Commercial Litigation, Labor and Employment Law – Management, Litigation – Bankruptcy, and Litigation – Real Estate.  She has also been recognized as a Super Lawyers Rising Star for outstanding lawyering in Business Litigation. 

During law school, Professor Pettit-Toledo served as a Case Note Editor and Publications Committee Editor for the University of Hawai‘i Law Review.  She also served as a summer law clerk in the Trial Chamber at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague, Netherlands, where she assisted in the trial of Prosecutor v. Ayyash, Badreddine, Merhi, Oneissi & Sabra, an in absentia criminal prosecution of terrorists who committed a bombing of political figures in Beirut, Lebanon under both international law and Lebanese criminal procedure and law. 

Professor Pettit-Toledo currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the Hawai‘i State Bar Association’s Leadership Institute and co-leads a session on “Doing the Right Thing.” 

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Who Is Worthy of Redress?:  Recognizing Sexual Violence Injustice Against Women of Color as Uniquely Redress-Worthy—Illuminated by a Case Study on Kenya’s Mau Mau Women and Their Unique Harms, 30 Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice 268 (2015)
Berkely Journal: https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1126748?ln=en
HeinOnline: https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/berkwolj30&div=10&id=&page=
SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4173541

Bridging the Chasm:  Reconciliation’s Needed Implementation Fourth Step, 15 Seattle Journal for Social Justice 109 (2016) (with Eric K. Yamamoto and Sarah Sheffield)
Seattle Journal: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol15/iss1/12/
SSRN:  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4173550
HeinOnline: https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/sjsj15&i=117

A Crucial 2016 Next Step Toward Jeju April Third Reconciliation:  United States Responsibility for Social Healing Through Justice, in Jeju 4.3 Grand Tragedy During Peacetime Korea: The Asia-Pacific Context (1947-2016) (2016) (book chapter with Eric K. Yamamoto et al.)
*No online links/sources available at this time

Unfinished Business:  A Joint United States and South Korea Jeju 4.3 Tragedy Task Force to Further Implement Recommendations and Foster Comprehensive and Enduring Social Healing Through Justice, 15 Asia-Pacific Law & Policy Journal 1 (2014) (with Eric K. Yamamoto and Sara Lee)
APLPJ: https://blog.hawaii.edu/aplpj/files/2011/11/APLPJ_15.2_Yamamoto_Pettit_Lee_FINAL.pdf
SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2442979
HeinOnline: https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/aplpj15&i=139

What’s Next?:  A Joint United States and South Korea Jeju 4.3 Tragedy Task to Further Implement Recommendations and Foster Comprehensive and Enduring “Social Healing Through Justice,” 2 Jeju World Environment and Island Studies 1 (2013) (with Eric K. Yamamoto)
WEIS: http://www.islandstudies.net/weis/weis_2014v04/v04n1_Yamamoto_et_al_What's.pdf
SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4173553

Book

Jeju 4.3 Solutions: Korea – United States Jeju 4.3 Task Force (with Eric K. Yamamoto and Sara Lee, translated into Korean by Jin Ho Kim) (2015)
*No online links/sources available at this time