AABANY Holds its 2025 Annual Meeting of Members at King & Spalding on February 11th

On Tuesday, February 11th, 2025, AABANY held its Annual Meeting of Members at King & Spalding. President Joseph Eng called the meeting to order and established a quorum. The main order of business was conducting the election for the 2026 Fiscal Year Board of Directors and Officers. 

Once all ballots were collected, President Eng called up President-Elect Ben Hsing and Immediate Past President Karen Kim to receive them as the Tellers. They departed to a separate room to count up the votes cast, both at the Annual Meeting and via electronic voting prior to the Annual Meeting.

While the votes were being tallied, President Eng invited the Membership Director, Alysha Naik, to present the Membership Director’s report. He then invited Treasurer Jasmine Ball to give the Treasurer’s Report, sharing information about AABANY’s financial performance during the past fiscal year.

President Eng then gave the Annual Report of the Board, summarizing AABANY’s major events for the past fiscal year, covering April 1, 2024, to date.  He thanked the Board members for their service during the past year and asked those present in the room to stand and be recognized.

Executive Director Yang Chen then gave the Annual Report of the Committees, giving thanks to the Vice Presidents of Programs and Operations Ashley Shan and Jeffrey Mok, and the Committee Chairs for their hard work. Yang also went over a few highlights from committee events over the past year. Yang then presented the Awards for Committees of the Year, Program of the Year, and Member of the Year. 

Committee of the Year: Professional Development Committee

The Committee of the Year Award was presented to the Professional Development Committee for their many years of volunteer service to the association, accreditation of numerous continuing legal education programs over the years that benefited our members and the profession, and making sure that the association complies with New York State CLE board rules, along with other programming to support professional development.

Program of the Year: Pre-Holiday Multi-Association Gathering

The Program of the Year Award was presented to the Pre-Holiday Multi-Association Gathering for bringing together numerous bar and judicial associations to promote wellness and well-being in the legal profession during a time of the year that may prove challenging for many.

Member of the Year: Gary Yeung 

The Member of the Year Award was presented to Gary Yeung for his many years of active and dedicated involvement, participation, and leadership in service to the association, to its members, and to the wider community.


After the presentation of the awards, Joseph announced the election results. The following officers were elected to serve a one-year term for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2025, and ending March 31, 2026 (the “2026 Fiscal Year”):

Varuna Bhattacharyya

President-Elect

Pei Pei Cheng de Castro

Vice President, Programs and Operations

Tai Chien

Vice President, Programs and Operations

P. Bartlett Wu

Treasurer

David Mou

Secretary

Alysha Naik

Membership Director

Beatrice Leong

Development Director

The following candidates were elected as Directors to serve two-year terms beginning on the first day of the 2026 Fiscal Year:

Glenn D. Magpantay
Katherine Loanzon
Jeffery Mok

The night concluded with a bittersweet goodbye to Deputy Executive Director, Alice Biagini. February 11 was Alice’s last day at AABANY. She accepted a position as a business development and marketing manager at a law firm. During her eight months with us, she made a great impact on our operations and activities and supported our Board members and Committee Chairs as well as our membership. Alice will be missed by everyone she has touched. Yang presented her with some parting gifts from AABANY, which included a cookbook entitled The Woks of Life as well as a personalized apron with the AABANY logo. We wish her well in her future endeavors and hope to continue seeing her at AABANY events, as a participant.  

We thank everyone who attended the Annual Meeting and everyone who voted, whether by proxy or in person. Congratulations to all the award recipients and the newly elected Officers and Directors.

Special thank you goes out to AABANY President Joseph Eng and the wonderful staff at King & Spalding for hosting AABANY’s 2025 Annual Meeting.

Get Involved with AABANY’s New Trusts & Estates Committee

AABANY is pleased to announce the launch of the Trusts & Estates Committee. This new committee serves as a professional and community network for AABANY members and non-members interested in the practice of Trusts & Estates law, which spans trusts, estates, and tax planning to Surrogate’s Court practice and litigation. The Committee is dedicated to providing a platform for networking, mentoring, and professional development, as well as opportunities for public service.

Pang-Mei Natasha Chang, Co-Chair of the Committee, is a member of Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP’s estates, trusts and private clients practice group, as well as its international France desk, and charitable, not-for-profit and religious institutions practice groups. She counsels both domestic and international individuals, businesses and charitable organizations in estate and trusts planning, and wealth transfer planning. She represents clients of all ages, and advises in insurance planning, IRA/retirement benefit planning and the use of trusts for not only estate planning but asset protection. She also serves on the Trusts, Estates and Surrogate’s Court Committee of the New York City Bar Association, where she has participated as a writer and presenter. 

Yi W. Stewart, the other Co-Chair of the Committee, works at the firm Farrell Fritz as a trusts and estates litigation associate. She performs pretrial discovery, conducts legal research, and prepares motions and memoranda of law for litigated Surrogate’s Court proceedings. Prior to joining Farrell Fritz, Yi served as associate law clerk to the Hon. Rita Mella for three years in New York County Surrogate’s Court, where she assisted the Surrogate with decisions on typical contested probate and accounting matters, complex issues of will construction and reformation, as well as novel issues such as a fiduciary’s authority to administer digital assets stored in Google and Apple accounts.

To contact the Committee Chairs for this Committee, click “Contact Us” at the top of the AABANY website and fill out the form, and tell us in the Comment field what in particular you would like to know about the Committee and its activities.

AABANY’s Co-Vice Presidents of Programs & Operations Host the Second Quarterly Committee Co-Chairs Meeting at King & Spalding

On July 28, 2022, Co-Vice Presidents of Programs & Operations Joseph Eng, Jr. and Beatrice Leong hosted the Second Quarterly Committee Co-Chairs Meeting at King & Spalding. The Quarterly Meetings are a chance for all Co-Chairs, whether new or well-experienced, to learn about their roles as leaders in AABANY, brainstorm on future events and CLEs, and learn best practices. 

The Co-Chairs were joined by the following Board members: President Will Ng, Membership Director Christopher Bae, Treasurer Evelyn Gong, Secretary Shirley Bi, Director of Technology Francis Chin and Board Directors Gigio Ninan and William Hao as well as Executive Director Yang Chen via video.

23 committees each sent a Chair to represent their group, share their thoughts, and collaborate with different committees. Immediately following the Committee Co-Chairs meeting was AABANY’s Membership Open House. To read more about AABANY’s Membership Open House, please click here.

Thank you to King & Spalding LLP for hosting AABANY’s FY2023 Q2 Committee Chair Meeting and Open House, and for providing food and beverages throughout the night!

Get Involved, Stay Connected: New York City Bar Association Committee Applications Still Being Accepted

It’s not too late to become a Committee member at the New York City Bar Association, which means that it’s not too late to become involved in over 150 areas of law within a membership body of over 24,000 students and legal professionals! NYCBA is still accepting applications for Committee member positions, and though some deadlines have passed, others are ready and willing for someone to take strong hold of the leadership opportunities.

NYCBA has reached out and noted that AABANY members are strongly encouraged to apply. The sooner, the better. Let’s get the ball rolling.

If you are interested contact [email protected]. Thank you!

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On Tuesday, January 24, 2012, the Asian American Bar Association of New York held its Annual Meeting at the offices of First American Title at 633 Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan.  Outgoing President Linda Lin welcomed the attendees and introduced the Committee Chairs as they each gave reports on their respective committee’s activities for 2011 and plans for 2012.  While the committee reports were being presented, the ballots cast for electing the 2012 Board members and officers were counted.

After the committee reports were presented, the recipient of the first-ever Outstanding Committee of the Year Award was announced.  Although many committees were deserving of the recognition, the honor ultimately went to the Intellectual Property Committee for the wide array and high quality of their programs and events.

Next, Alex Lee, NAPABA’s VP of Communications, gave an update on the upcoming Super-Regional taking place at the end of May in Atlantic City and encouraged everyone to take part.

President Lin then announced the results of the elections:

Officers:

  • President-elect – Mike Huang
  • Treasurer – Clara Ohr
  • Membership Secretary – Judy Kim
  • Recording Secretary – Jane Chuang

Directors

  • Robert Leung
  • Karen Lim
  • William Ng
  • Dev Sen
  • Vinoo Varghese
  • James Yu

Congratulations to the incoming Officers and Directors of AABANY.

Incoming President Jean Lee, whose term officially starts on Feb. 1, gave the closing remarks, and thanked Linda for her leadership and the committee chairs for all their hard work.  Jean looks forward to working with the the Board and committee chairs in the year ahead.