Margery Bronster | |
Office: | 10th Attorney General of Hawaii |
Governor: | Ben Cayetano |
Term Start: | 1995 |
Term End: | 1999 |
Predecessor: | Robert A. Marks |
Successor: | Earl I. Anzai |
Birth Date: | 12 December 1957 |
Birth Place: | New York City, New York, U.S. |
Education: | Brown University (BA) Columbia Law School (JD) |
Margery S. Bronster (born December 12, 1957)[1] is a lawyer who served as Attorney General of Hawaii from 1995 to 1999.[2]
Bronster graduated from Brown University, where she became fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and then Columbia University Law School in 1982.[3] She went into private practice for Shearman & Sterling in New York City in litigation. She moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1988, and joined the firm Carlsmith Ball Wichman Murray Case & Ichiki. That law firm is now known as Carlsmith Ball, LLP.
In 1995, she was appointed as the first woman to hold the office of Attorney General of Hawaii for a full term.
During her tenure in the Democratic administration of Governor of Hawaii Benjamin J. Cayetano, she won the state a multibillion-dollar Master Settlement Agreement from tobacco companies. In 1997, she led an investigation into abuses by the Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate trustees. She was reappointed to a second term by Cayetano, but her investigation of Bishop Estate trustees caused her to fall out of favor with the Hawaii State Legislature, resulting in her failed confirmation to a second term by the state senate in 1999.[4] [5] She was replaced as Attorney General by Earl I. Anzai, who was formerly budget director.
Bronster then became a founding partner in the Honolulu-based Bronster Crabtree & Hoshibata, now Bronster Fujichaku Robbins.[6] Best Lawyers in America recognized her as 2016 "Lawyer of the Year" in Honolulu, in the practice area of Insurance Litigation.