Out-of-control drug pricing. Gas shortages. Government intervention for struggling financial institutions. Branches of government in conflict with each other.

For former state Deputy Attorney General Robert Patrick Jaress, the nightly news might have seemed like a bad 1970s rerun.

Jaress, who died Jan. 30 at the age of 66, is remembered as a gifted trial attorney with an everyman sensibility and a passion for consumer protection -qualities that served him, and Hawai'i, well during his 38 years of public service and private practice.

A memorial service for Jaress is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. tomorrow at the First Unitarian Church.

A trailblazing figure in the Hawai'i legal community, Jaress, who was born in Detroit and earned his law degree from Wayne State, entered the field during a period of renewed interest in anti-trust enforcement and went on to wage high-profile battles on a variety of fronts.

As a deputy attorney general, Jaress raised eyebrows by successfully suing the state Pharmacy Board to overturn a rule that prohibited drugstores from advertising the prices of prescription drugs and disclosing prices over the phone.

"Prohibiting price advertising hurts the consumers, who are generally the sick and the elderly, and helps the profits of the pharmacies," Jaress said at the time.

The unprecedented case, heralded as "State sues State" in local headlines, ultimately lowered prescription drug prices in Hawai'i and broadened pubic access to cheaper generic drugs.

Jaress also was a driving force in the state's response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Jaress helped draft the state's GASPLAN rationing program, which was credited with reducing the snaking lines of cars at gas stations that characterized the early days of the shortage.

Popular approval of the plan reflected well on then-Gov. George Ariyoshi, who won his bid for re-election that year.

Jaress also engaged in a protracted investigation of then-Mayor Frank Fasi's handling of campaign funds. Jaress left for private practice before the case was resolved, receiving a respectful good-luck wish from Fasi. The investigation was shelved soon after.

Jaress' retirement from public service didn't end his consumer advocacy. He worked for free on behalf of a consumer action group that repeatedly challenged Hawaiian Telephone's requests for rate increases and fought for "off-premises" beer consumers to receive a share of a $1.51 million settlement stemming from an effort by local beer distributors to fix prices between 1973 and 1976.

It was during the latter case that Jaress met his eventual wife and law partner, Linda-Mei Leong.

"Each group had their own lawyer," Leong recalls. "The bar owners had one, the stores that sold beer had one, and the people who ordered beer in bars had one. But the people who bought beer to drink at home, and that was everybody, that's who Pat represented.

"That was who he was," she said. "He was that everyman guy."

Jaress also endured his share of trying times, including his stint as general counsel for the Thrift Guaranty Corporation, the embattled deposit insurance company established by the state Legislature that bore the brunt of reimbursing depositors during the collapse of Great Hawaiian Financial, Manoa Finance and Pacific Standard Investment and Loan Co. in the 1980s.

Throughout his career in private practice, Jaress also represented individuals and small local businesses in lawsuits against large corporations such as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Hilton Hotels Corp., Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC and Ernst & Young.

Jaress is survived by Leong; children David, Katherine, Brian, Kevin and Lisa; six grandchildren; and two brothers.