Summer Kupau-Odo ‘04

Summer Kupau-Odo is an associate attorney at Earthjustice where she represents community groups seeking to restore mauka-to-makai stream flows to Maui’s Nā Wai ‘Ehā (“Four Great Waters”), protect traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights, including kalo farming, and enforce the public water resources trust. Summer has also represented environmental groups in a Clean Water Act citizen suit against Maui County for injecting into underground wells treated wastewater that travels to West Maui’s Kahekili Reef. In addition to the Hawai‘i Water Code and Clean Water Act, Summer has litigated cases involving the Hawai‘i Environmental Policy Act, Magistrate Act, Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and Administrative Procedure Act. 

Prior to Earthjustice, Summer served as trial and appellate attorney at the Hawai‘i Office of the Public Defender for eight years, and as a law clerk to the Honorable Simeon R. Acoba, Jr., Associate Justice of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court. 

Summer graduated from the William S. Richardson School of Law in 2004 with an Environmental Law Certificate. While at Richardson, she served as Comments Editor for the University of Hawai‘i Law Review, and was a two-year member of the National Environmental Law Moot Court Team.

Summer grew up in Lahaina, Maui, and is an alumna of Lahainaluna High School.