Thank you AABANY, PBCS, AAFE, and our volunteers who assisted with the August 7th pro bono legal clinic in Queens! Our volunteers spent the rainy night meeting 13 clients and answered questions involving housing, divorce, and immigration law.
The clinic saw some returning clients at the pro bono clinic, and attorneys were able to connect them to more resources to help them resolve their cases. New clients were satisfied with the legal advice given, with a clear understanding of what actions to take next. Volunteer attorneys and interpreters collaborated with one another to address concerns with clients that spoke Spanish and Chinese. AABANY Interns had the opportunity to shadow attorneys and watch them work to address client problems and provide referrals. Interns helped to collect the intake forms and surveys, delivering them to organizers for data collection.
Thank you again to everyone, including volunteer attorneys:
Anthony Wong
Beatrice Leong
Gary Yeung
Kevin Hsi
Lina Lee
May Wong
Richard In
Shirley Luong
Willow Liu
Thanks also to the non-attorney volunteers:
Rita Zheng
Emily Kam
Ruo Yang
Overall, the event was a success as clients took the attorneys’ advice to take the next step in their cases. If you would like to participate in future Pro Bono clinics to help serve the community, please join us at these upcoming events:
Manhattan Pro Bono Clinic on August 21, 2024 at AAFE Community Center, 111 Norfolk St, New York, NY 10002. Sign up here – https://forms.gle/SD2VMY8X6yE4vsxW9
Queens Pro Bono Clinic on October 2, 2024 at AAFE One Flushing Community Center, 133-29 41st Ave, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355. Sign up here – https://forms.gle/5PjG8A73EE1XENyV9
On August 14, AABANY’s Pro Bono & Community Service (PBCS) Committee and Government Service and Public Interest (GSPI) Committee hosted a hybrid legal clinic and provided a “Know Your Rights” presentation for residential and commercial tenants on the topic of rent arrears and evictions. The event was held at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) in Manhattan’s Chinatown and was co-sponsored by AABANY, CCBA, Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE), and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New York (CCCNY).
During the presentation, which was shown on Zoom and screened in-person at CCBA, Rina Gurung, an associate court attorney at the New York State Unified Court System and co-chair of the GSPI Committee; Kensing Ng, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society in East Harlem; and Meghan Liu, a Cleary Gottlieb pro bono fellow at Legal Services NYC, discussed different types of cases that are brought in housing court, such as nonpayment, holdover, and housing part cases. They also explained which eviction moratoria are in effect due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and emphasized that these laws can change at any time. This was especially relevant, given the imminent expiration of the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act on August 31, 2021; the expiration of the CDC’s moratorium on October 3, 2021; and the U.S. Supreme Court’s August 12, 2021 opinion striking down part of the New York moratorium.
Gurung, Liu, and Ng also provided resources that tenants could contact to file hardship declarations and explained the basics of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), which provides rental arrears, temporary rental assistance, and utility arrears assistance to low- and moderate-income households at risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability. They also explained that landlords seeking to sue their tenants should hire a lawyer and for those who received a marshal’s notice to go to court. In addition, the presenters explained differences in procedures for cases involving commercial tenants and provided resources for both landlords and tenants, phone numbers for free consultations for income-eligible individuals, and a guide to landlord disputes. Bei Yang, a contract attorney at On Call Counsel, interpreted the presentation live into Mandarin Chinese.
Eighteen clients attended the clinic for one-on-one legal consultations with AABANY volunteers, including 12 who had registered beforehand, one virtual caller, and five walk-ins. Topics ranged from housing and matrimonial law to immigration, fraud, medical malpractice, and personal injury. All available client consultation slots were successfully filled.
One client, an older man who only spoke Cantonese, came to the clinic because he had been scammed by a woman who claimed to be interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him online. She then asked him to send her a significant sum of money, and he did so before realizing that she was a fraud. Such occurrences are not uncommon, especially among elders, and individuals who have been or who know victims of similar types of fraud should not feel ashamed to tell their stories or speak to an attorney. Sharing these stories promotes awareness of these types of scams and helps others avoid them.
While AABANY volunteers were conducting one-on-one consultations, several clients watched the presentation in the CCBA sitting area. One client asked for the PBCS email to see if she could get a recording of the presentation and re-watch it, as she missed a portion of the live presentation. She also was impressed by clips from the Anti-Asian Violence PSA that explained what hate crimes were and how they can be reported, and asked for the link to the YouTube video, even though she spoke no English. After the one-on-one consultations concluded, volunteers debriefed the clinic and got to know each other over a post-clinic meal at Canton Lounge.
The PBCS Committee thanks Rina Gurung, Kensing Ng, and Meghan Liu for lending their expertise in rent arrears, eviction moratoria, and landlord and tenant rights and Bei Yang for providing a live interpretation of the presentation. The Committee would also like to thank Beatrice Leong, Francis Chin, Guiying Ji, Jae Hyung Ryu, Judy (Ming Chu) Lee, Karen Kithan Yau, Kwok Ng, Samantha Sumilang, and Shengyang Wu for providing clients with legal information and resources during one-on-one consultations; Kloe Chiu and Esther Choi for providing language interpretation during one-on-one consultations; Luna Fu and Wai Yip from AAFE for language interpretation and other assistance; Zhixian (Jessie) Liu and Poonam Gupta for acting as standby consultants for immigration-related questions; and Asako Aiba, Karen Lin, Kevin Hsi, Kwok Ng, May Wong, Megan Gao, and Olympia Moy for coordinating and staffing the clinic. AABANY would also like to thank CCBA, CCCNY, and AAFE for co-sponsoring this event. We are also grateful to the staff at Charles B. Wang for providing video resources on mental health and anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To learn more about the PBCS Committee and its work, click here and here. The PBCS Committee is tentatively planning to hold its next hybrid legal clinic on Saturday, September 18, 2021 between 12:30 PM – 3:30 PM. For up-to-date details about the clinic and registration information, please click here.
On September 3rd, 2020 the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (“NAPABA”) announced their 2020 award winners which included Karen Kithan Yau, Of Counsel at Kakalec Law LLP and the Pro Bono and Community Service (“PBCS”) Committee Co-Chair of the Asian American Bar Association of New York (“AABANY”). AABANY is thrilled to have our PBCS Co-Chair recognized for her dedication and service to the community. “I am humbled to receive this honor. I could not have accomplished all that I have but for my incredible colleagues of the PBCS Committee, who are gifted lawyers dedicated to the community good,” Karen said.
Karen was recruited to co-chair the PBCS Committee in 2017 and led AABANY members in the Pro Bono Legal Advice and Referral Clinic (“the Clinic”), the PBCS Committee’s signature and ambitious project, which began two years earlier. The Clinic continues to leverage the linguistic and cultural competence available through AABANY’s diverse membership to help the large and diverse but underserved Asian American Pacific Islanders (“AAPI”) community in New York.
Karen’s leadership and compassion have allowed the Clinic to thrive, including in its current state as a remote clinic due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, the Clinic deployed 161 volunteers to serve 418 pro bono clients between 2018 and 2019, which represents a 700% growth from its inception in 2015, in 13 languages besides English. At the 2020 AABANY Annual Dinner, the Clinic received the New York State Bar Association Bar Leaders Innovation Award. “The Clinic’s success was due in no small part to Karen’s deep commitment to serving the public, amplified by vision, leadership and setting a high standard for others to follow,” said AABANY’s Executive Director Yang Chen. Since July when the remote version of the Clinic launched, close to 200 clients have received assistance.
Karen joined Kakalec Law, an employment and civil rights law firm, after amassing legal, teaching, and professional experience in the public service, not-for-profit and private sectors, and leading legal institutions. Her decades of experience in diverse contexts have been essential to the success of both the Clinic and the Committee.
Among her responsibilities as the PBCS Committee Co-Chair, Karen has led fundraising efforts to bring in much needed funding to augment the limited available funds from AABANY’s general budget. Karen has also participated in the clinic as a volunteer attorney, taking on several clinic consultations a week regarding employment issues. Moreover, Karen dedicated time to bring on law student Jenna Agatep, from her alma mater Northeastern University School of Law, to help with Committee projects and assist Ms. Agatep with her scholarship application for the Asian American Law Fund of New York to support her work in the Clinic.
The NAPABA Pro Bono Award recognizes an attorney or a team of attorneys for outstanding achievements in pro bono service that (1) involved impact litigation to advance or protect civil rights or (2) provided direct legal services to individuals in the furtherance of the administration of justice. The subject matter and difficulty of the case(s) or matter(s) and time expended are factors considered in selecting the award recipient.
Through her exemplary leadership at AABANY as a co-chair of the PBCS Committee and a leader of the highly impactful Clinic, Karen has gone above and beyond the criteria of this award. Her profound contributions will continue to be felt as she brings much-needed, quality legal service to the underserved in the AAPI community.
Please join AABANY in congratulating Karen Yau on her well-deserved honor. Karen will be presented with the Pro Bono Award at NAPABA’s virtual awards ceremony held in December for all of the Awards recipients. To honor Karen, NAPABA made an award video highlighting her achievements and it will be distributed on NAPABA social media channels. To view the video, please visit the link below:
GivingTuesday is being held this year on December 3. It is a global movement that began in 2012, and the idea behind it is simple: Do good and help transform your community with your generosity. During this holiday season, we ask that you support our Pro Bono Legal Advice and Referral Clinic, a project of the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) and the Asian American Law Fund of New York (AALFNY).
The Pro Bono Clinic began in December 2015 and has since served thousands of low-income clients facing various legal hardships. The Clinic has been held in Manhattan’s Chinatown on the second Wednesday of each month since that time. The success of our Clinics in Manhattan has led to an expansion into Brooklyn, which started this fall on a bimonthly basis. We work with local elected officials and community organizations to reach Brooklyn’s Asian American community and draw upon the expertise and language skills of AABANY’s active and diverse membership to serve them. Clients have been coming not only from the five boroughs but from as far as Yonkers, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Our Clinics provide high-quality legal services that are culturally sensitive and linguistically competent. Language and culture pose serious barriers for low-income Asian American community members to receive reliable legal advice. Our Clinics help community members overcome these barriers and seek to widen their access to justice. The Clinics now include mental health professionals and benefits counselors to help community members with their non-legal problems.
Hundreds of volunteers have dedicated thousands of hours for the Pro Bono Clinics. Month after month, they freely donate their time, expertise and legal knowledge to help community members who otherwise would not get the help they need.
Our Pro Bono Clinics can only continue to operate with the generosity of our donors. In September, we announced our goal to raise $25,000 to support the Clinic’s growing operations. We ask that you stand with us and support this vital project. Help us not only to reach our goal of raising $25,000 — through your donations on GivingTuesday – but exceed it! Your donations will support our ongoing expansion efforts and pay for much needed administrative support and supplies.
To make it easier for our members and our community to donate to the Pro Bono Clinic, you can text APAPROBONO to 44321 on your phone. That will send you to our Give Lively page, and you can follow the simple instructions there to make your contribution. You can also donate via the AALFNY website at https://www.asianamericanlawfund.org/donate/ (make sure to indicate that you are donating to the Clinic). Any amount, large or small, will go a long way towards helping us meet our $25,000 goal.
With our best wishes to you all during this holiday season,
Karen Kithan Yau Pauline Yeung-Ha Judy Ming Chu Lee Asako Aiba Co-Chairs, AABANY Pro Bono and Community Service Committee
A copy of AALFNY’s latest annual report may be obtained from AALFNY at [email protected] or from the NY Attorney General’s Charities Bureau website www.charitiesnys.com. Information may also be obtained from the NYS Attorney General at 212-416-8686.
January’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic, held on Wednesday, January 9 at 3 Bowery Street in Confucius Plaza, brought out 16 lawyers and 6 interpreters who volunteered their time to help 34 clients.
We are asking every member to actively support AABANY’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic by making donations that are vital to its continuing operation. In a few short years, with the tireless and generous assistance of our volunteers, we have helped hundreds of low-income clients with free legal advice and referrals to high-quality, culturally sensitive, and linguistically competent legal services. Together we have helped expand access to justice for underserved Asian American New Yorkers.
If
you know family members, friends, or businesses, such as your firm, who
would like to support the Clinic, please help us connect with them by
contacting Karen Yau at [email protected].
Or
please urge them to make a donation directly. They can visit the
website of Asian American Law Fund of New York (AALFNY), AABANY’s
501(c)(3) affiliate: https://www.asianamericanlawfund.org/donate/
AALFNY is accepting charitable donations on the Clinic’s behalf and
can issue any donor a tax receipt. Any contribution, large or small,
would help. Please be sure to indicate in the memo field that the
donation is intended for the Pro Bono Clinic.
Thank you to all of the January Pro Bono Clinic Volunteers!
Lawyers:
Gaye L. Chun
Jennie Kim
Eun Hye (Grace) Lee
Kwok Kei Ng
Thomas Hou
Francis Chin
Alexandra Lee
Poonam Gupta
Amanda Bernardo
Susan Thorn
Zhixian Liu
Suehyan Cho-O’Leary
David Lu
Pauline Yeung-Ha
Karen Kithan Yau
Judy (Ming Chu) Lee
Interpreters:
Alva Lin
Weiling Huang
Derek Ting-Che Tai
Teresa Wai Yee Yeung
Satoshi Kurita
Wenxin Natalie Lu
Special thanks to Johnny Thach for coordinating the clinic, and the Pro Bono and Community Service Committee Co-Chairs Karen Kithan Yau, Ming Chu Lee, and Asako Aiba for their leadership.
If you are interested in volunteering at next month’s Pro Bono Clinic on February 13, please contact Asako Aiba at [email protected]. AABANY’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic occurs every second Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.
November’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic, held on Wednesday, November 14 at 3 Bowery Street in Confucius Plaza, brought out 13 lawyers and 9 interpreters who volunteered their time to help 29 clients:
Lawyers:
Christopher Chin
Sylvia Chin
Gaye L. Chun
Kelly Diep
Jonathan Hernandez
Mihea Kim
Beatrice Leong
Zhixian Liu
David Lu
Kwok Kei Ng
Annie Tsao
John Wu
Jessie Xian
Interpreters:
Satoshi Kurita
Derek Ting-Che Tai
Weiling Huang
Emily Xianxiao Li
Haoyi Deng
Vicky Qiuyan Zhao
Jessica Wang
Teresa Wai Yee Yeung
Eric W. Dang
Special thanks to Johnny Thach and Roger Chen for coordinating the clinic, Social Worker Ann Hsu, and the Pro Bono and Community Service Committee Co-Chairs Karen Kithan Yau, Ming Chu Lee, and Asako Aiba for their leadership.
If you are interested in volunteering at next month’s Pro Bono Clinic on December 12, please contact Asako Aiba at [email protected]. AABANY’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic occurs every second Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.
October’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic, held on Wednesday, October 10 at 3 Bowery Street in Confucius Plaza, brought out 17 lawyers and 6 interpreters who volunteered their time to help 51 clients:
Lawyers:
Zhixian Liu
Wei Li
Sylvia Chin
Sonya Chung
Rachel Yoo
May Kay Wong
Lord Chester So
Kwok Kei Ng
Kevin Hsi
Kelly Diep
Francis Chin
David Lu
Conlyn Chan
Christopher Chin
Chris M. Kwok
Annie Tsao
Jiayun Zhang
Interpreters:
Alva Lin
Xianxiao (Emily) Li
Wen Zhang
Wei Ling Huang
Rachel Chen
Emily Li
Special thanks to Roger Chen and Johnny Thach for coordinating the clinic, and the Pro Bono and Community Service Committee Co-Chairs Pauline Yeung, Karen Kithan Yau, Ming Chu Lee, and Asako Aiba for their leadership.
If you are interested in volunteering at next month’s Pro Bono Clinic on November 14, please contact Asako Aiba at [email protected]. AABANY’s Monthly Pro Bono Clinic occurs every second Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.
We know this has been a difficult time for many of you. We hope you and your family are safe and are recovering post Sandy.
KALAGNY invites volunteer attorneys to make a difference in the lives of those adversely affected by Sandy. Along with other social service providers, we will hold a pro bono “clinic” this Friday, November 9, 2012, from 1-6 p.m. at the Korean American Association of Greater New York (149 West 24th Street, 6th Fl. in Manhattan) (map). No specialized legal experience is necessary. A training session and lunch will be served at noon at the same location prior to the clinic.
At the clinic, KALAGNY and its partner organizations will provide legal support to individuals and businesses that may be facing homelessness, unemployment, medical exigencies, business interruption, or a combination of the foregoing. We are seeking 1-2 bilingual (i.e., Korean) volunteers for an information table at the Clinic. Please e-mail [email protected] if you are interested in volunteering by Wednesday November 7, 2012.
