Today, the Hawaiʻi State Senate voted to confirm Hawaiʻi Solicitor General Kimberly Tsumoto Guidry, Governor Josh Green’s appointee, to a seat on the Hawaiʻi Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA).
Kimberly Tsumoto Guidry received her Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1999 and her Juris Doctor degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law in 2002. Guidry would later serve as a Deputy Attorney General for two decades, lead the Department’s Appellate Division, and eventually take the mantle as Solicitor General in 2019. Her legal experience expands beyond her position at the Department of the Attorney General as a Bar Examiner for the Hawaiʻi Board of Bar Examiners and as a member of the Judiciary’s Hawaiʻi Rules of Appellate Procedure standing committee.
“Solicitor General Guidry has proven she is well-versed in appellate procedure and knowledgeable about many of the issues addressed by appellate courts," said Senator Karl Rhoads (District 13 - Dowsett Highlands, Pu‘unui, Nu‘uanu, Pacific Heights, Pauoa, Punchbowl, Pālama, Liliha, ʻIwilei, Chinatown, and Downtown), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “With the testimony in support of her and her work, including from the Hawaiʻi State Bar Association, I am confident that Judge Guidry will be a strong addition to the ICA.”
Guidry’s confirmation fulfills the goal of the Legislature in its passage in 2022 of Act 90, Senate Bill 2390, introduced by Senator Rhoads, to expand the Intermediate Court of Appeals to a total of seven judges in order to resolve a greater number of appeals more expeditiously and assist the court's efforts to reduce its backlog. The confirmation also restores full gender parity in State courts with 40 sitting female judges and justices and 40 sitting male judges and justices.
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