The NAPABA President’s Award recognizes individuals and organizations that demonstrate an exceptional commitment to the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community. Selected annually by the NAPABA President, the award celebrates those whose leadership and service have made a meaningful impact on our community.
This year, NAPABA honors Wilson Chu and Sandra Yamate, two longtime leaders in the AANHPI legal community. Over the course of their careers, Wilson and Sandra have contributed their time and leadership to NAPABA and initiatives serving the legal profession and AANHPI community. Their decades of service reflect a longstanding commitment to supporting and uplifting others in the legal community.
NAPABA is honored to celebrate Wilson and Sandra and recognize their achievements at the 2026 NAPABA Convention in Los Angeles on Friday, November 13, at the President’s & Trailblazer Awards Reception.
Wilson Chu
Senior Counsel, Dechert
Wilson Chu is a strategic advisor to boardrooms and C-suites, known for a collaborative, creative, business-minded approach to complex transactions and corporate governance. His practice is heavily weighted toward technology, especially superintelligence. Matters include advising Tesla’s Special Committee on Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package, serving as Texas counsel on Amazon’s $13b acquisition of Whole Foods, and advising a 50% co-founder in Mailchimp’s $12b sale to Intuit.
He chaired the ABA M&A Committee (world’s largest), under which he created the game-changing Deal Points Studies and The MAC Cup national law student competition.
With his partner-in-crime, Don Liu, he co-founded many of NAPABA’s cornerstone initiatives, including the Best Under 40 Award, IHC and Partners Networks, and the 50×30 Initiative/Pipeline Program, as well as The Alliance for Asian American Justice (delivering over $10m in pro bono to victims of anti-Asian violence).
Sandra Yamate
Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession
Sandra S. Yamate is the CEO of the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession. She was a founder of both AABA-Chicago and NAPABA, where she was the first Central Region Governor and organized NAPABA’s first regional conference.
Currently, Sandra is the 99th President of the National Association of Women Lawyers (“NAWL”), the first Asian American in its 125+ year history. As President, she wrote/produced a video on the history and achievements of Asian American women lawyers, launched an Activation Summit in Honolulu, and spearheaded the renewed and expanded joint advocacy effort by the national affinity bars.
Sandra serves on the Board of the Chicago Bar Foundation and as DEI columnist for Chicago Lawyer magazine. By special appointment, she is a member of the New York City Bar Association’s DEI Committee. Sandra designed a law school course, “Diversity and Inclusion: A Social and Professional Responsibility” that was awarded the E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award by the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism.