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On Saturday, September 22, at the Subotnick Center in Brooklyn Law School, more than 30 law students, including many from Brooklyn Law School and some from the law schools at Fordham, Cardozo and St John’s, spent a few hours in the afternoon meeting the leaders of the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) and learning about different career paths for law students and the skills needed to survive and thrive in law school.
Irene Tan and Ben Chan, Co-Chairs of the Student Outreach Committee, planned and organized this first-time event. It began with an introduction to AABANY given by Executive Director Yang Chen, followed by several Committee Chairs talking about the work of the committees and how law students can get involved. This panel included Liza Sohn, Co-Chair of the Women’s Committee, Will Ng, Co-Chair of the Student Outreach and Communication Committees, Karen Lim, Co-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee, Rio Guerrero, Co-Chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee, and Richard Tsai, Co-Chair of the Government and Public Sector Committee.
After the law students were introduced to AABANY and some of its Committees, the discussion turned to a career panel that included Jean Lee, AABANY President and in-house counsel at JP Morgan Chase, who spoke about practicing litigation as a civil litigator and as an in-house lawyer; Sam Yee, Assistant Attorney General at the New York State Attorney General’s office, who spoke about litigating as a prosecutor; Michael Huang, AABANY President-elect and Partner at Boies Schiller & Flexner, who spoke about practicing as a corporate transactional lawyer; Tim Wong, past AABANY Treasurer and solo practitioner, who spoke about opening up his own general practice in Chinatown; Rio Guerrero, founder of Guerrero Yee, who talked about starting his own immigration practice; Chris Chan, past AABANY president, who shared his experiences as a criminal defense lawyer; and Richard Tsai, court attorney for Hon. Michael Stallman, who discussed working in public service. The panel was moderated by Yang Chen.
After the career panel, Ben Chan spoke about exam-taking and other skills that new law students need to master to survive in law school and to success beyond it.
The workshop concluded with a networking session that gave the law students a chance to speak directly with all the panelists to ask questions one-on-one or in smaller group settings.
Thanks to BLS APALSA for hosting the event, and thanks to everyone who came. To learn more about the Student Outreach Committee, contact Ben and Irene, the Co-Chairs at studentoutreach-chairs@aabany.org. (Thanks to Francis Chin for the photos.)
