Helping others through doorways she opened

“Education is the way to understand other people,” says Jackie Mahi Erickson. “If we want peace in the world, this is a good way to do it: through education.”

This conviction has guided her to share what she has been given. Her recent pledge to establish the Jackie Mahi Erickson ’77 Ulu Lehua Seminar Room Fund at the William S. Richardson School of Law reflects this lifelong arc, bringing her support home to a program aligned with her reasons for entering law school more than 50 years ago. This fund follows the 2003 establishment — with her husband Bruce Erickson — of the Jackie Mahi and Bruce T. Erickson Scholarship Award, presented to 29 UH Law students as of this spring.

Jackie is a member of the law school’s second-ever graduating class. When she enrolled in the early 1970s, the decision felt improbable. She had built a professional life in fine arts, teaching, and community development. At 32 years old, she was long removed from academic study, and surrounded by younger classmates fluent in the habits of law school. The first year was intimidating and exhausting. Sleep was scarce. Confidence came slowly.

Her purpose carried her through.

Answering a call from her community

At the time, Jackie was part of a small Native Hawaiian activist group focused on self-determination. The group’s leaders believed Hawaiians needed greater presence and credibility in fields that shaped public life, especially law and politics. John Waihe‘e, a member of UH Law’s first graduating class and future Hawai‘i governor, encouraged her to go back to school and help build this future. With support from her family and community, she took the risk.

“I would never have become a lawyer if UH Law didn’t exist,” she says.

After earning her JD in 1977, Jackie’s career unfolded across public service and private practice. She interned at Legal Aid, clerked at the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, served as a deputy attorney general, and later became general counsel at Hawaiian Electric. Along the way, she carried a quiet but deliberate goal: to show other Hawaiians what was possible.

Jackie says, “Upon my retirement, I received a card from another wahine general counsel, who wrote, ‘You are my model and inspiration. You made me believe I had a chance.’”

Work. Save. Share.

“As a very young kid, I earned money hand-picking kiawe beans and selling them to the piggery lady for 20 cents,” she says. My mom would tie a dime from my earnings into a corner of my white hankie, sending me off to church with my Sunday offering. Work hard, save, share. I’ve never changed.”

Years ago, Jackie and Bruce acquired an old oil painting of Hilo Bay by Joseph Nāwahī, a Hawaiian artist, scholar, and political leader. They lived with the painting for more than 20 years before donating it back to the people of Hawai‘i through Kamehameha Schools. Its significance, cultural value, and eventual appraisal on Antiques Roadshow created lasting benefits for the family, benefits Jackie views with humility and wonder.

The legacy of a Nāwahī painting

“Was it serendipity or something else?” she says. “Going to UH Law School and finding that Nāwahī painting gave me a life I could never have imagined as a poor kuaʻāina kid.”

Tax benefits from the painting’s donation led to establishing the Joseph Nāwahī Scholarship supporting UH students in law and politics. It also gave Jackie and Bruce the means to give more generously, with greater reach, across the causes shaping her life. Being able to share, she says, brings her deep happiness.

Her support of the Ulu Lehua Program follows this line of intention. Ulu Lehua supports aspiring law students through academic preparation, mentoring, and community connection. Jackie says it echoes the collective effort sustaining the law school in its early years—and the belief in education’s power to open doors that otherwise remain closed.

Carrying the mission forward

Over decades, her advocacy has taken many forms: helping fight for the law school’s survival, fundraising as a member of the law school’s Friends Board, establishing scholarships, encouraging corporate support, mentoring students, and hiring skilled Hawaiian lawyers and UH law interns. The Ulu Lehua Seminar Room Fund extends this legacy into a shared space nurturing preparation, conversation and possibility.

The seminar room bearing her name is less about recognition than continuity, says Jackie. It stands as an invitation to students who are considering law school, to alumni who remember being supported along the way, and to others who believe education remains one of the most powerful ways to strengthen communities.

“I have earned and saved,” Jackie says. “I give back. How lucky I am to do so?”