On Saturday, February 27, we co-sponsored the 5th Annual Columbia APALSA Conference: Not Your Model Minority – Where We’re Really From and Where We’re Going. This year’s conference featured many AABANY members and friends, including:
- Hon. Danny K. Chun, Kings County Supreme Court
- Kyoko Lin, Partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
- Sylvia Chin, Partner at White & Case LLP
- James Cho, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of New York; Former President of the Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York
- Lawrence Wee, Partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP; AABANY Board Member
- Steve Chung, Senior Vice President at NBCUniversal; AABANY Board Member
- Ellen Ching, Partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP
- David Lat, Founder and Managing Editor of Above the Law
- Clement Lee, Staff Attorney at Detention Program at Immigration Equality
- Eugene Chen, Equal Justice Works Fellow
- John Vang, Senior Appellate Counsel at Center for Appellate Litigation
- Connie Montoya, Co-Chair of the LGBT Network of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
- Francis Chin, Senior Administrator at Brooklyn Law School; Former AABANY Board Director
- Helen Wan, Author of The Partner Track
Happy to be a part of another great year of reflection and inspiration! Highlights here:
The keynote panel has started! Let’s figure out how to break the bamboo ceiling. pic.twitter.com/NQCztKjua8
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
“I’ve been bashing my head against the bamboo ceiling all my life. I lost my hair.” -Hon. Danny Chun
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Bamboo ceiling, porcelain veil, whatever it’s called, you should break it and ground it up. -Hon. Danny Chun
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
We see very few Asian applicants at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The numbers don’t tell the whole story. -James Cho
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Wow, look at all those AABANY members on the Columbia Law APALSA Conference. https://t.co/mSJlkVZmc1
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Mentors come in different forms. You want to have different kinds of mentors too. -Sylvia Chin
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
You have to get out there and socialize. You have to build personal relationships. Obviously, never burn bridges. -Sylvia Chin
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
I have a lot of confidence in millennials. I thought we’d be more advanced by now, but you can break the barriers we had. -Sylvia Chin
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Don’t forget that law is a business, and a client-based business. We’re hired to solve problems. -Kyoko Lin
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
This isn’t just an Asian issue. This is an everyone issue. Don’t be passive and expect things to just happen to you. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
I thought I was going to be an IP Litigation Associate, but that work dried up. I asked for white collar and corporate work. -Jack Chen
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Lot of laughs at The “It” Factor Negotiation Workshop. pic.twitter.com/mZtfdIdLHi
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
They told me I was going to get eaten alive in the M&A Group. I joined the M&A Group. -Ellen Ching, new M&A Partner at Paul, Weiss
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
It’s not comfortable the first, second, or hundredth time you lead a call. But you do it. -Ellen Ching
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
According to Larry Wee, partners love to gossip about associates and start judging you from the moment they meet you.
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
The worst call I can get: “I can’t get what [Associate] is saying. Can you take over?” -Larry Wee
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
I went to law school a long time ago. Do you guys still have gunners? -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Once you do an excellent job, people are going to want to talk to you. No one talks to the guy who makes your life harder. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Don’t ask a question if you haven’t thought about the answer first. -Ellen Ching
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Gunners are in-person verbal spam. Establish a relationship without being annoying. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Treat your boss like they’re your client. Treat your client like they’re human. People like when you take an interest in them. -Larry Wee
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Steve Chung just got out of his seat to give the best bad example of networking with Francis Chin. https://t.co/DpfgnNmrgx
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
My favorite networking is the kind where I don’t what the person does until an hour later. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
I go into networking events with the mindset, “How do I help this other person?” -Jack Chen
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
There are a lot of tools out there, but you can’t think of people like tools. You have to be sincere. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Stereotypes are a starting point. People use them to mentally fill in the blanks. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Don Liu of @Xerox advised Steve Chung of @NBCUniversal to go to more parties and have more game.
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
The good mentees I’ve had come into our meetings with an agenda. -Steve Chung
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
I won’t take the time to mentor you if you’re leaving the firm in two years. Why should I invest time in you if you’re leaving? -Larry Wee
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Don’t necessarily look for someone who looks like you for a mentor. Finding someone with a similar disposition is better. -Ellen Ching
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
The People of Color in the Media luncheon session has started! @BLACKGIRLSROCK @DavidLat @atlblog pic.twitter.com/51IqONpkGC
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Proud to have John Vang, Connie Montoya, Clement Lee, and Eugene Chen on a Columbia APALSA panel discussing the… https://t.co/2avBsXDT54
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
There’s a misconception that immigration laws are thought-out as opposed to the legacies of animus against different groups. -Clement Lee
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
LGBT APA attorneys have been around for a long time. @NAPABA just formed an LGBT Committee last year. People are still not open. –@montcon
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
The world of incarceration is full of discrimination and power plays that most people never have to think of. -John Vang
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
When Fortune 500 companies explicitly committed themselves to diversity publicly, law firms finally opened up to the idea. -Connie Montoya
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
When the LGBT Affinity Group was formed, I was one of the last partners to join because I didn’t know if it was only lip service. -Connie M.
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
In 2016, you see less blatant versions of discrimination. It may not be on purpose, but it’s still a part of the dialogue. -Clement Lee
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
There’s a fiction that all courts are supposed to be the same. But New York and Georgia couldn’t be more different. -Clement Lee
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
Name changes had to be published in the newspaper. What that did was publicly out trans people. -Eugene Chen
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
High praise for Commissioner @CarmelynMalalis at the @ColumbiaLaw APALSA Conference.
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
People can smoke out a fake. If you spend your energy hiding who you are, that’s exhausting. -Connie Montoya @montcon
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016
At the end of the day, you come out when you’re ready. That’s a personal decision. -Connie Montoya @montcon
— AABANY (@aabany) February 27, 2016