20 for the Next 20: John R. Love, Cades Schutte

As head of the firm’s finance, real estate and corporate department, Love brings vast knowledge of every aspect of real estate, “from the dirt on up.”

While his Cades Schutte colleague Lisa Ayabe describes him as humble and approachable, John Love uses more colorful language: “I call myself a dirt lawyer because I work on everything from the dirt on up.”

Love’s expertise in real estate law ranges from “condos to development to leasing to standard purchasing sales and financing,” says Ayabe. “To find such an incredibly well-rounded attorney with that background is rare.”

He was recently named chair of the firm’s finance, real estate and corporate department, where he handled over $600 million in transactions last year and oversees 30 attorneys. Associates, partners and clients all “gravitate to John because he can explain complex issues in a way that’s digestible,” says Ayabe.

Love says he strives to always give the best legal representation for his clients, “in an ethical and upstanding manner,” and encourages the younger lawyers that he mentors to do the same, as “clients can have an outsized effect on the community that we live in.”

One example are the two middle-income condo towers at 801 South St., completed in 2015, where Love represented the developer. He still lives there “because I believe so much in the project.”

His scrupulous nature carries to his role as chair of the Hawai‘i Real Estate Commission, where he helps ensure that real estate professionals “operate with the highest levels of ethics” and that condo projects are legally compliant.

He says if he wasn’t limited to two terms on the commission, he would stay “forever.” It’s a way to give back, an imperative drilled into him by his grandmother’s side of the family, Okinawan immigrants who started Times Supermarket.

“They felt that they wouldn’t have been able to start a business if it wasn’t for the community supporting them,” he says.

Love serves on the board of his family’s nonprofit, the Albert T. and Wallace T. Teruya Foundation, which finances capital improvement projects at schools and hospitals. To feed his creative side, he plays violin with the Oahu Civic Orchestra.

He also played with the orchestra at Yale, where he got his bachelor’s degree. He then worked in New York City before heading to Northwestern University for law school.

“I love living in this highly structured world professionally. Music is this whole other side of your brain. There’s notes and time signatures, but there’s still a creative and emotional aspect to it. … Working with an orchestra on a piece of music is just heaven.”