Friends, family, colleagues and leaders of Hawaii law enforcement filled a federal court yesterday afternoon as Florence Nakakuni was sworn in as the first female U.S. attorney in the history of the state.

Senior U.S. District Judge Samuel King marveled at the turnout, noting that the ceremony competed with a televised World Series game.

Speakers including Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Osborne and state Circuit Judge Steven Alm extolled Nakakuni's abilities as a longtime prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office here.

Alm was U.S. attorney for Hawaii when he named Nakakuni as chief of the office's drug and organized crime section.

He praised Nakakuni's sense of humor and said that when he needed to find her in the office, all he had to do was "follow the laughter."

Nakakuni, 57, said that as U.S. attorney, she "would like to increase our support of law enforcement " in pursuing cases against a wide range of targets, including local and international organized crime, health care fraud and crimes against the environment.

"There will be no room for partisanship in how our office is run and how cases are prosecuted ," she said.

The goal of the office will be "not that we have to win, but that we will do justice," she said.

Nakakuni served as an assistant U.S. attorney here for 24 years.

Before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, Nakakuni worked as a counsel at the Navy Office of General Counsel in Pearl Harbor and spent two years as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Information and Privacy Appeals at the Justice Department.

Nakakuni grew up in Palolo, graduated from Kaimuk í High School and received two bachelor's degrees from the University of Hawaii. She received her law degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law at UH in 1978.

"This is one local girl," Osborne said, noting that every time he has gone anywhere in public with her, she has invariably been stopped and greeted by friends and acquaintances.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.