"Broken Trust" authors Samuel King and Randall Roth are renewing questions about the culpability of Hawai'i's legal system in the scandal that resulted in the removal of five Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate trustees nearly a decade ago.

In an article in the August issue of the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal entitled “Erosion of Trust,” the authors ask, "So where were the lawyers?"

"Many were there for dec ades at the trustees’ side, collecting fees amounting to tens of millions of dollars of the charity’s money for work that often benefited only the personal interests of the trustees,” wrote King and Roth.

They also slammed Supreme Court justices and members of the state Judicial Selection Commissions for cronyism in selecting trustees who were then paid $1 million-a-year, and for entangling a charitable trust intended to educate Hawaiian children with Hawai'i's political establishment.