Tag: inclusion

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AABANY’s LGBT Committee Hosts a Roundtable Discussion On Negotiating The Experience of Being Both LGBT and Asian American

On March 5, 2019, the AABANY LGBT Committee held a roundtable discussion titled: “Transactional Identities: Navigating the various contexts of coming out for Asian American lawyers.”  

Presenting were Connie Montoya, Partner, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP; Janice Jabido, IP Counsel, Pratt & Whitney; and Tony Thomas, Chief Legal & Labor Relations Officer, City University of New York – Brooklyn College.  

Dennis M. Quinio, Manager of Diversity & Inclusion, Milbank, LLP, moderated the discussion.  

Our esteemed presenters jump-started the conversation, sharing their experiences being LGBT and Asian American within the legal profession, their families and their communities at large.  They discussed the struggles of being in the closet; the dynamics of coming out to colleagues, clients, and family members; and strategies for overcoming day-to-day challenges such as microaggressions. Several Asian American LGBT attorneys from private practice, government and the nonprofit sector attended the discussion and shared their experiences in this confidential space, meant to foster a candid and supportive dialogue. We heard about others’ experiences harmonizing identities that may seem to be in conflict and explored how living our “authentic” selves can impact our effectiveness at work.

The law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton graciously hosted the event. At the beginning of the roundtable, Sandra Flow, Partner and Chair of the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion at Cleary, delivered warm welcoming remarks, affirming the firm’s commitment to supporting diverse attorneys.  

If you would like to join the AABANY LGBT Committee or learn more, email John Vang at [email protected].  

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Don Liu featured as the Keynote Speaker at the Fourth Annual Alumni of Color Event of Columbia Law School

On Thursday, January 24, 2019, Don Liu was featured as the Keynote Speaker at the Fourth Annual Alumni of Color Event of Columbia Law School. The event took place at the Intercontinental Barclay Hotel in Manhattan and was attended by over 200 Columbia Law School Alumnae.

Don spoke of the challenges of being an APA Attorney and In House General Counsel. He praised all of the pioneering efforts of NAPABA and AABANY to support and encourage the future careers of many APA law students and attorneys.

Of greater importance was how he inspired the audience with what Diversity and Inclusion meant to him and how important it was to embrace it.

We thank Margaret Ling, AABANY’s Director of Development and Co-Chair of AABANY’s Real Estate Committee, for providing the photos and write up for this post.

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A Message to NAPABA Members After Charlottesville

Dear Colleagues,

Racism, hate, and bigotry have no place in our country. Leaders do not equate individuals who support ideologies of hate with those who stand defiantly in support of diversity and inclusion, in support of our nation’s ideals. There is no moral equivalence between bigotry and tolerance.

As we said on Monday following the horrible hate on display by neo-Nazis and white nationalists and the tragic loss of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, “Our core values—acceptance, diversity, and inclusiveness—will overcome the forces of hate and racism.”

We cannot look away from this hate. We must challenge it. We must stand for our core values. This is not a time for ambivalence or equivocation.

We come together as Asian Pacific American attorneys. We have different personal stories, but we all come together as a community with a shared history. We come together because we recognize the power of our community and our profession. We have seen what happens when our communities or other marginalized groups do not have a voice in the law or in the public sphere.

We are leaders with the privilege and ability to ensure that these voices are lifted up and that these stories are told. Just as past civil rights leaders have done for us, we must speak up to advance our principles of justice and equality and to help heal our nation’s deep scars. We continue to draw on the strength and resilience of our history. We must protect civil rights and our vision of democracy.

I am proud to see law firms, law professors, corporations, organizations, and others affirm the commitment of the profession to diversity. I am proud to see individual lawyers stand in common humanity to drive away darkness.

Be a light that guides people to peace, understanding, tolerance, and inclusion. Provide pro bono legal services to the people and organizations opposing racism and violence. Call on your leaders to unequivocally and publicly denounce racism and all those who support it. Have the tough conversations with your families and friends to help them understand and process the events of these trying days.  

As lawyers committed to our values, we must be in the courts, the legislatures, and the community to protect the progress we have made since the civil rights era and move forward towards “a more perfect union.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  

As lawyers, law students, and legal professionals, we must help bend it.

Sincerely,

Cyndie Chang
NAPABA President, 2016-17

National Asian Pacific American Bar Association | 1612 K St. NW, Suite 510 | Washington, D.C. 20006 | www.napaba.org

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New York Institutes a Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias CLE Requirement for Experienced Attorneys | Media Listing | NYC Bar

New York Institutes a Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias CLE Requirement for Experienced Attorneys | Media Listing | NYC Bar

Diversity brings diverse perspectives, and fairer representation for a diverse society. While the legal profession has publicly committed itself to diversity and inclusion, it has yet to become a model of inclusion itself, remaining largely homogeneous even as the population it serves continues to grow more heterogenous.

Beginning in 2018, a biennial requirement of one credit of Diversity & Inclusion CLE will be implemented in New York for experienced attorneys. In July of last year, the New York City Bar Association and 12 other New York bar associations issued a letter endorsing the institution of a D&I CLE requirement for New York State, in accordance with Resolution 107 passed by the American Bar Association in February 2016. That resolution emphasized education for lawyers around an expanded definition of diversity, meaning the inclusion of all persons regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disabilities. On September 14, 2016 and January 12, 2017, AABANY issued letters in support of the D&I CLE initiative, as an organization committed to the values of equality and social justice that the legal profession upholds and to breaking the obstacles of bias and discrimination that face the APA community within the profession.

The legal profession should reflect the diversity and the complexity of the society it serves, something that the Asian American community, which remains disproportionately underrepresented in the profession today, knows all too well. “Education and knowledge breed change,” Immediate Past President Susan L. Shin wrote in a letter to Hon. Betty Ellerin, Chair of the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board, last year. “By recognizing the importance of diversity and inclusion as values of primary importance, the D&I CLE requirement directly addresses one of the most important criticisms of the legal profession.” As so clearly evidenced by A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law, the report published by NAPABA and Yale Law School on July 18, Asian Americans still face many barriers when it comes to being accurately represented and fairly treated, despite three decades of growth and progress in the legal profession. The implementation of a D&I CLE is a crucial step forward in promoting diversity in the legal profession, in finding solutions to the problems addressed by the Portrait Project, and in making the law more fair and just for those who work within it and for those it serves.

For more information on the D&I CLE, follow the link in the title.

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NYLJ: Asian Americans Find a Voice Within the Law

NYLJ: Asian Americans Find a Voice Within the Law

The indifference toward Asian American equality is a result of our having been classified under the rubric of the ‘model minority’ and thus viewed as achieving success by keeping our heads down and working hard. But Asian Americans have not achieved the success and equality that we are perceived to have reached, particularly in the legal profession.

Congrats to Mike Huang, AABANY President, whose Law Day article appears in the May 1st issue of the New York Law Journal.

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