Judge August brings to the practice of alternative dispute resolution a long history of both advocacy and adjudication.

After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1963, he worked for two years in the coastal region of Ecuador as a Peace Corp volunteer in community development programs. He was awarded a Reginald Heber Fellowship in 1969 upon his graduation from Boalt Hall School of Law, University California at Berkeley. From 1971 to 1976, he was employed as a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii. In that capacity he acted as lead counsel in a number of precedent setting state and federal cases in areas such as administrative rule making (Aguiar vs. Hawaii Housing Authority), First Amendment political speech rights (Hao vs. Ross), and the protection of historic sites and native Hawaiian religious rites on the island of Kahoolawe (Aluli vs. Brown). In 1975, Judge August was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to study jurisprudence at Cornell University.

Between 1980 and 2002, Judge August was in private practice as a partner in the law firm of Lowenthal and August. His practice emphasized civil litigation in the areas of medical malpractice, personal injury and land use issues related to shoreline development. During a portion of this period, he also served as chief legal counsel to the Kahoolawe Island Conveyance Commission, an entity established by President George H.W. Bush to formulate guidelines for the decontamination and return of the military target island of Kahoolawe to the jurisdiction of the State of Hawaii.

Judge August’s career as a jurist commenced in 1982 when he was appointed by then Chief Justice William Richardson to be a per diem district family court judge, a position held for sixteen years. In 2002, Judge August was appointed to be a Circuit Judge in the Second Circuit. As a trial judge, he presided over jury and judge trials in both civil and criminal cases. With regard to his civil calendar, Judge August acted as a settlement judge in a multitude of cases prior to his retirement as a judge in March 2011. Among the professional and community activities Judge August has participated in are the Hawaii State Bar Association (President 2000), Maui Academy of Performing Arts (Board President 1986-1996), Wailuku Elementary PTSA (President 1993-1994) and the Maui Youth Basketball League (coach 1989 to present).