In addition to Wayne Parsons’ wealth of experience in personal injury law, he actually began his career in the sciences, earning his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Engineering – Physics and Engineering – Mathematics, with a minor in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.  Coming to Maui with the University of Michigan Mt. Haleakala Observatory in 1967, he worked on the 1969 Apollo moon landing with scientists based on the Island of Maui. Having fallen in love with surfing and the people of the Islands, Wayne returned to Ann Arbor and attended the University of Michigan Law School, returning to Hawai‘i permanently in 1975.

Wayne honed his trial advocacy skills in the public defender’s office, and in his early years had the opportunity to work with some of the country’s premier trial attorneys, including Melvin Belli, F. Lee Bailey and Robert Shapiro and Hawai‘i legendary trial lawyer Hyman Greenstein.  In 2014 Wayne served as President of the Melvin M. Belli Society, a national organization of noted trial lawyers that perpetuates the memory of Melvin Belli. One of his early cases with Mr. Greenstein was to represent several members of the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana who had been charged with trespass by the United States Government for occupying the Island of Kahoolawe in protest of the military use of the island for bombing practice.  Since 1983, Wayne has focused exclusively on representing plaintiff’s personal injury matters and consumer advocacy in the construction industry, assembling a talented staff and a network of outside expert consultants while working on some of the largest and most significant cases in Hawai‘i’s history.

Wayne has been selected for inclusion to SuperLawyers, a listing of attorneys in each state who received the highest point totals, as chosen by peers and through the independent research of Law & Politics magazine.  In the late 1980s, Wayne formed the Hawai‘i Association for Justice (HAJ) and successfully obtained accreditation of HAJ by the 25,000-member American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America).  In 1988, Wayne founded the People’s Law School in Hawai‘i, a six-week adult education course offering non-lawyers basic legal information – he calls it “real law, for real people”.

In 1994, Wayne was honored with the Founder’s Award for creating the Consumer Lawyers of Hawai‘i (CLH) the predecessor organization to HAJ.  He has been elected to a number of leadership roles in the local legal community, including serving as the President of the Hawai‘i State Bar Association in 2006, and he regularly writes legal articles as a member of InjuryBoard, the Melvin M. Belli Society, the Roscoe Pound Foundation and the Federal Bar Association. In July 2016 Wayne was chosen as the President of the Hawai‘i chapter of the Federal Bar Association.