About NAAG
Mark J. Bennett (R)
Hawaii Attorney General
Appointed: 2002
425 Queen St., Honolulu, HI 96813
(808) 586-1500
http://www.hawaii.gov/ag/
Mark Bennett took office as Hawaii’s Attorney General on January 2, 2003, after being appointed to that post by Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle. Mr. Bennett graduated from Union College (summa cum laude) in 1976 with a B.A. in Political Science, and graduated from Cornell Law School (magna cum laude) in 1979, where he was on the Board of Editors of the Law Review. After law school, Mr. Bennett spent one year as a law clerk to the Hon. Samuel P. King, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii.
Following his clerkship, Mr. Bennett worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington D.C. from 1980 to 1982. From 1982 to 1990, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mr. Bennett tried major criminal and civil cases, argued cases on appeal, and supervised Special Assistant United States Attorneys. In 1986, he received a Special Achievement Award from the Attorney General of the United States, and throughout his tenure was a frequent instructor in criminal and civil trial advocacy at the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C.
From 1991 through his appointment as Hawaii’s Attorney General, Mr. Bennett was a litigation partner in the Honolulu law firm of McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP, where he specialized in complex litigation. While in private practice, Mr. Bennett served, pro bono, as a Special Deputy Attorney General and a Special Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, prosecuting two murder cases in Hawaii state court. Mr. Bennett also taught criminal procedure to second and third year law students at the William S. Richardson (University of Hawaii) School of Law.
In June 2004, the National Association of Attorneys General named Mr. Bennett Chair of its Antitrust Committee, succeeding Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of New York. The Committee plays a leading role in state and multi-state enforcement of antitrust laws and in coordinating multi-state antitrust litigation. The Committee also works to foster information exchange, training, and education on state antitrust enforcement.
Mr. Bennett will also be Chair of the Association’s Executive Working Group for Antitrust, which includes the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission and the Head of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Mr. Bennett has been married for twenty years to attorney Patricia Tomi Ohara.
