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Stacy Wu & Karen Lim – Intellectual Property Rising Stars, Super Lawyers

Stacy Wu & Karen Lim – Intellectual Property Rising Stars, Super Lawyers

Congratulations to Fross Zelnick attorneys Stacy Wu and Karen Lim, who have been named Rising Stars in Intellectual Property by Super Lawyers. Stacy is currently Co-Chair of AABANY’s Intellectual Property Committee. Karen is the former Co-Chair of the IP Committee and a current Board Director. 

Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. The selection process for the Rising Stars list is the same as the Super Lawyers selection process, with one exception: to be eligible for inclusion in Rising Stars, a candidate must be either 40 years old or younger or in practice for 10 years or less. 

Please join us in congratulating Stacy and Karen. 

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Request: Pro Bono Guardian for Incapacitated Member of Chinatown Community Member

The New York Legal Assistance Group has passed along a request from the Chambers of Justice Visitacion-Lewis, New York State Supreme Court. The Court is currently seeking a person who would be willing to become a pro bono guardian for an incapacitated person who has close ties to the Chinatown community. The incapacitated person speaks English and some Mandarin. Knowledge of the Chinatown community would be key.

If you are interested in helping this person, please contact Tina Janssen-Spinosa at NYLAG directly at tjanssen-spinosa@nylag.org. 

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LSNYC Delivers Landmark Win for NYC Students and their Families

Please see below a message from Raun Rasmussen, Executive Director of Legal Services NYC, on the wonderful work by Nelson Mar, a senior education law attorney at Bronx Legal Services and a member of AABANY’s own Government Service and Public Interest Committee, and his colleagues at Legal Services for New York City, which is AABANY’s collaborator in providing pro bono opportunities to our members and offering pro bono legal services to survivors of domestic violence. Congratulations to everyone involved in this important case!

I’m writing to highlight a landmark settlement in education policy won by Nancy Bedard (Brooklyn), Tara Foster (Queens), and Chris Lamb, Nelson Mar and Nanette Schorr, (Bronx), along with co-counsel from Cuti Hecker Wang, in T.H. et al. v. Farina, et al. The decision puts an end to the unnecessary and harmful practice of sending students who experience emotional, behavioral, or psychiatric events to the emergency room. Under a settlement approved by the U.S. District Court on Monday, the NYC Department of Education will now implement new protocols to avoid unnecessary 911 calls and better train NYC public school staff to de-escalate, rather than aggravate, encounters with children who are struggling.

Our litigation team represented 11 children and their parents in this case. The settlement is a win not only for these children and their parents, but for student rights and health throughout NYC public schools. Working together across the City, our advocates have had an enormous positive impact on the lives of those who need us most. As the year draws to a close, we look forward to even more successes in 2015.

The settlement has already garnered media attention in WNYC, the Wall Street Journal, and NY1. I encourage everyone to have a look at the coverage below. Great work team!

Links to coverage:

WNYC: City Agrees to Stop Schools from Using 911 for Discipline
Wall Street Journal: Students Suit Settled in New York City
NY1: http://www.ny1.com/content/news/education/220532/schools-adopt-new-policy-for-sending-students-to-er/

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2015 Joint Minority Bar Judicial Internship Program Application Available: Due Jan. 12

The Joint Minority Bar Judicial Internship Program is proud to announce that the Summer 2015 application is now available at www.jmbjip.org.  Deadline is January 12, 2015.

The Joint Minority Bar Judicial Internship Program was founded in 2010 to offer law students with a strong commitment to diversity an opportunity to enhance and complement their legal education as summer judicial interns in New York metropolitan area courthouses.  Judicial internships are exceptional learning opportunities that offer tremendous insight into the process of judicial decision-making, as well as an opportunity to strengthen analytic and legal writing skills.  Each year, JMB JIP partners with various bar associations to offer the program, which has historically included a stipend for a judicial internships – a traditionally unpaid position.

AABANY is proud to be a part of the great work that JMB JIP does providing law students of color with important opportunities.

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2015 Summer NLF Public Interest Internship Awarded to Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County

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The NAPABA Law Foundation (NLF) is pleased to announce the 2015 Summer NLF Public Interest Internship grant has been awarded to Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA).  The NLF Public Interest Intern will work to identify emerging issues in healthcare and workers’ rights in the San Gabriel Valley’s APA community. This project will be a subset of NLSLA’s currently ongoing Legal Needs Study to determine specific legal needs in its service areas. The NLF Public Interest Internship will provide $6,000 in total to NLSLA to fund the NLF Public Interest Internship.

Specifically, the NLF Public Interest Intern will: 

  • Provide direct legal assistance to APA individuals through the Health Consumer Center and Workers’ Rights Clinic
  • Conduct outreach with APA-serving organizations, businesses, and ethnic media outlets to increase visibility of the Health Consumer Center hotline and Workers’ Rights Clinic
  • Survey existing APA services in the San Gabriel Valley and the private bar relating to healthcare access and workers’ rights; in doing so, identify at least three partners in priority cities and interview these partners for referral potential
  • Develop a pitch for NLSLA’s projects to share with elected officials and stakeholders in the San Gabriel Valley with an interest in helping expand legal services
  • Research demographic data of San Gabriel Valley populations from U.S. Census and other population surveys
  • Create two consumer education pieces on a health and workers’ right issue

This project furthers the mission of the NAPABA Law Foundation by placing a law student in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley to educate and serve the APA community. By immersing the legal intern in direct legal services, impact advocacy projects, and interactions with community leaders, attorneys will mentor the intern in the nuts and bolts of community lawyering and foster the intern’s interest in pursuing public interest work.

We thank all of the applicants for their excellent proposals and we encourage organisations to apply for the NAPABA Law Foundation Community Law Fellowship – a two-year fully funded fellowship (applications due on December 31, 2014).

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AABANY Applauds Nomination of Kathy Hirata Chin for New York Court of Appeals Vacancy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 18, 2014

Contact: Yang Chen, Executive Director
(718) 228-7206

NEW YORK – December 18, 2014 – The Asian American Bar Association of New York (“AABANY”) is proud to announce that the Commission on Judicial Nominations has named Kathy Hirata Chin (Partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft LLP) as one of seven well-qualified nominees for the judgeship vacancy on the New York State Court of Appeals created by the retirement of Judge Robert Smith. The Commission on Judicial Nomination, charged with evaluating and recommending to the Governor candidates to fill vacancies on the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, received 53 applications and interviewed 22 candidates for the Smith opening.

“AABANY applauds the Commission on Judicial Nomination for its recommendation of Kathy Hirata Chin to join the highest court of New York and strongly encourages Governor Cuomo to make history by appointing the first-ever Asian Pacific American (APA) judge to this esteemed institution,” said AABANY President Clara Ohr.  “Kathy’s qualifications would make her a valuable addition to this court and her appointment would be an important step toward making the judiciary in New York a more accurate reflection of the population it serves.” APAs remain significantly underrepresented in the New York Judiciary. With approximately 1300 judges in the New York State court system, only 22 of them are APAs in spite of the fact that APAs make up approximately 8% of the population of New York State.  

“We congratulate Kathy on her selection as a nominee to the State’s highest court,” said Linda Lin, Co-Chair of AABANY’s Judiciary Committee. “Her outstanding credentials, balanced temperament, and sterling achievements undoubtedly make her an excellent candidate for the bench and we strongly urge Governor Cuomo to appoint Kathy Chin to the New York Court of Appeals bench.”

Kathy Hirata Chin is an accomplished litigator who has handled dozens of appellate cases, concentrating her practice in healthcare and real estate. After graduating magna cum laude from Princeton University and graduating Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Ms. Chin joined Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, becoming one of the first minority and women Partners in 1990. Nominated by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Ms. Chin served on the New York City Planning Commission from 1995-2001. Nominated by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Ms. Chin has served on the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption since August 2003. She has also served on Governor Mario M. Cuomo’s Judicial Screening Committee for the First Judicial Department from1992-1994; the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Eastern District of New York from 1992-1999; the Gender Bias Committee of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Race, and Ethnic Fairness; the New York County Lawyers’ Association’s Task Force to Increase Diversity in the Legal Profession; and Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye’s Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections from 2003-2006; and the New York County Lawyers’ Association Board of Directors. She currently serves as a member of The Attorney Emeritus Advisory Council and The Commercial Division Advisory Council, and as member of the Board of Directors of the Medicare Rights Center. Ms. Chin has been a longstanding and active member of AABANY.

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For more information, please contact Yang Chen, AABANY Executive Director, at (718) 228-7206, or direct any inquiries to main@aabany.org.

The Asian American Bar Association of New York is a professional membership organization of attorneys concerned with issues affecting the Asian Pacific American community.  Incorporated in 1989, AABANY seeks not only to encourage the professional growth of its members but also to advocate for the Asian Pacific American community as a whole.  AABANY is the New York regional affiliate of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA).

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Volunteer with Empire Mock Trial: January 24-26

Earn 3 free CLE credits while educating top collegiate mock trial competitors! 
 
The nonprofit Empire Mock Trial, in conjunction with NYU Mock trial, is pleased to invite you to our ninth annual Downtown Invitational mock trial tournament on January 24-26 at the EDNY (225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn. Each year the Downtown brings together sixteen of the top collegiate trial advocacy teams. This year’s field includes Harvard, Columbia, NYU, UVA, 2014 national runner-up Princeton, and the 2014 defending national champion, UCLA. 

You can help teach talented, motivated college students about the law by volunteering just a few hours of your time. In exchange, we’ll provide you with free non-transitional CLE credits in the category of skills. 

 
  • Features four preliminary rounds of competition, and you can judge as many or as few as you like—no litigation experience is required
  • Please free to invite a friend or colleague to co-judge with you at the tournament.  We’ll pair you together!
  • 16top trial advocacy teams will compete including Harvard, Columbia, NYU, UVA, and defending national champion UCLA
  • We’ll serve complimentary food and beverages as a token of our appreciation
  • Registering takes less than a minute – just visit our site
We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.  Feel free to call (917-426-EMTA) or e-mail admin@empiremocktrial.org.
 
We look forward to seeing you in January. 
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