27th Anniversary Gala Seating | Saturday, Nov. 7 at 6:30 pm
If you’ve registered for the NAPABA Convention in New Orleans, join AABANY’s table for the 27th Anniversary Gala! During the registration process, you had the opportunity to pre-select your Gala seat. Please review your selection by clicking here. NAPABA will be unable to make any seat assignment changes after Friday, Oct. 30.
NAPALSA is seeking attorneys to participate in their mock interview/resume review program during the NAPABA Conference in New Orleans! Interested attorneys will be matched one-on-one with students from around the country for a short 20-30 minute mock interview session. Any questions about the program may be directed to [email protected]. Please fill out the form if you are interested in participating.
Law Student Eight Minute Mentoring
NAPABA attorneys – please register to attend the mentoring program with law students taking place on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 4-5 p.m. This important program and benefit to law students is part of the Convention registration form.
Register for the NAPABA Convention by Oct. 26 for maximum savings. Members automatically save $100 off the non-member rate. Not a member? It’s not too late. Join before registering for the Convention for additional savings.
Gala and Plenary Speakers You Won’t Want to Miss!
Friday Luncheon Plenary-The Voting Rights Act 50 Years Later: A Call to Action
Karen Narasaki (moderator), Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Dale Ho, Director (panelist), Voting Rights Project, ACLU
Natasha Korgaonkar (panelist), Assistant Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
Nina Perales (panelist), Vice President of Litigation, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Saturday Breakfast Plenary-Women in Public Service
Ivan K. Fong (moderator), Senior Vice President, Legal Affairs and General Counsel, 3M Company
Michelle K. Lee (panelist), Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Jenny Yang (panelist), Chair, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Saturday Luncheon Plenary-The Changing American Racial Landscape Post 9/11
Deepa Iyer (moderator), Senior Fellow, The Center for Social Inclusion
Thursday Specialty Programming – Don’t miss out on programming beginning on Nov. 5. Arrive early to take part in the Affiliate Leadership Summit, International Law Symposium, Solo Small Firm Bootcamp, and Military and Veterans’ Legal Issues CLE (free session presented by the ABA)!
Friday and Saturday NAPABA Committee/Network Receptions – Interested in joining or learning more about a NAPABA Committee or Network? Attend a reception and mingle with current committee/network members in an informal setting.
Best Under 40 Award Reception – Join the 2015 class of honorees as they continue the BU40 legacy of excellence and leadership in both the legal and APA communities.
Trailblazer Award Reception – Celebrate this year’s exception award winners as we recognize their outstanding achievements, commitment, and leadership.
NAPABA Committee Networking & Recruiting Breakfast – Open to all! Join NAPABA Committee and Network leaders and learn about taking a more active role in a NAPABA Committee or Network.
Real Estate Case Study – The Real Estate Committee’s 4th annual Case Study promises to be their best one yet, bringing together jazz, revival, performance space and food in signature New Orleans style! All NAPABA attendees are welcome to participate.
Already registered? Click here to log back into your registration and add exciting new programming to your agenda.
Convention Mobile App
Stay tuned for information about NAPABA’s Convention mobile app that will be available in your Apple and Android stores on Oct. 21. Download the mobile app for access to the complete Convention schedule, sponsor information, and access to the NAPABA Partners Directory!
For More Information, Contact: Brett Schuster, Communications Manager [email protected], 202-775-9555
Navdeep Singh Appointed as NAPABA’s Policy Director
WASHINGTON — The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) has named Navdeep Singh as its new policy director, announced NAPABA Executive Director Tina Matsuoka. As policy director, Singh will be responsible for developing and implementing strategies and programs to support NAPABA’s policy priorities.
An expert in strategic legal policy and civil rights, Navdeep Singh brings important experience as a policy advocate to NAPABA. Prior to joining NAPABA, Singh served as policy director at the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), where he co-authored “Turban Myths” – the first study on implicit bias and the Sikh American community – with researchers from Stanford University, advised the FBI on the implementation of expanded hate crimes categories, and developed the first national Sikh American television public service announcement. Singh is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the George Washington University Law School.
“Navdeep Singh is a proven leader in the Asian Pacific American community and I am excited to bring him on board as NAPABA’s new policy director,” Matsuoka said. “We look forward to working with Navdeep to enhance NAPABA’s national presence and expand our coalitions within the legal profession and the broader community to support diversity and inclusion.”
“It is a tremendous honor to join NAPABA,” said Singh. “I am excited to support NAPABA in its continued efforts to address the civil rights issues confronting Asian Pacific American communities, and to help ensure a robust, dynamic, and successful future for NAPABA and the Asian Pacific American community.”
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) is the national association of Asian Pacific American attorneys, judges, law professors, and law students. NAPABA represents the interests of almost 50,000 attorneys and approximately 75 national, state, and local Asian Pacific American bar associations. Its members include solo practitioners, large firm lawyers, corporate counsel, legal services and non-profit attorneys, and lawyers serving at all levels of government.
NAPABA continues to be a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting Asian Pacific American communities. Through its national network of committees and affiliates, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity of the federal and state judiciaries, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of color in the legal profession.
The Portrait Project: A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law
“The Portrait Project: A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law,” is the first comprehensive study of its kind examining how Asian Americans lawyers and law students are situated within the legal profession. The Portrait Project – led by California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, Yale law professor Ian Ayres, and three Yale law students – will be conducting focus groups during the annual NAPABA Convention this year from Nov. 5-8, 2015, in New Orleans.
As of now, 100 of you have volunteered your time to participate in these focus groups sessions. We would love to hear from more of you, and we especially encourage legal academics, public defenders, prosecutors, and nonprofit attorneys to sign up for these sessions. Each focus group will last one hour and engage participants in conversations about law school experiences, career choices, and experiences as lawyers. These small-group conversations of about eight to ten participants each will yield rich insights into the opportunities for and obstacles to advancement of Asian Americans in the legal profession. Your narratives and experiences will help us create a comprehensive portrait of what it means to be an Asian American in the legal profession today.
As a token of our appreciation, we will be giving away the choice of a 4th Generation Apple TV (to be released in October) or a Keurig K45 Elite Brewing System to one randomly selected participant in each focus group.
If you are willing to participate in a focus group, please fill out this form by Monday, Oct. 12.
This is our last call for participants, and we hope to hear from more of you soon. Please free to reach out to us by email at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
The Portrait Project
Justice Goodwin Liu California Supreme Court
Professor Ian Ayres Yale Law School
Eric Chung, Xiaonan “April” Hu, Christine Kwon Yale Law School Class of 2017
For More Information, Contact: Brett Schuster, Communications Manager [email protected], 202-775-9555
Update: NAPABA Announces 2015 Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award Recipients
WASHINGTON — The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) has selected five exceptional attorneys to receive NAPABA’s highest honor — the Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award. This award recognizes the outstanding achievements, commitment, and leadership of lawyers who have paved the way for the advancement of other Asian Pacific American (APA) attorneys. These Trailblazers have demonstrated vision, courage, and tenacity, and made substantial and lasting contributions to the APA legal profession, as well as to the broader APA community.
The 2015 Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazers Awards will be presented on Nov. 6, 2015, at a special ceremony during the 2015 NAPABA Convention in New Orleans, to the following recipients:
Captain Benes Z. Aldana — United States Coast Guard Assemblymember Rob Bonta — California State Assembly David Louie — Kobayashi Sugita & Goda LLP Justice Sabrina Shizue McKenna — Supreme Court of the State of Hawai’i Judge Amul Thapar — United States District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky
The 2015 Trailblazers class is represented by a diverse and impressive group. Captain Aldana serves as the Staff Judge Advocate (Chief Legal Officer) of the Eighth Coast Guard District, the largest district in the Coast Guard, and is responsible for providing legal advice to the district commander and oversees the provision of legal support to Coast Guard operations spanning 26 states, including the outer continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, he is currently a judge on the U.S. Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals. He is believed to be the first Asian Pacific American to be appointed as a military trial judge (2005) and as an appellate judge (2015) in the U.S. military. As a leader in the American Bar Association, he is currently a board member of the ABA Rule of Law Initiative and on the ABA Commission on Diversity and Inclusion 360.
Assemblymember Bonta is the first and only Filipino American ever elected to the California State Legislature in the 165 year history of the state and has led a number of significant legislative efforts to empower the APIA community, including: Assembly Bill (AB) 7 to establish a state day of recognition to honor Filipino American labor leader and California hero, Larry Itliong; AB 123 to require the state public school curriculum to include the contributions of Filipino Americans to the farm labor movement in California; and AB 817 to assist the nearly 2.6 million eligible voters in California who are not yet fully proficient in English by providing them with language assistance at the polls.
Mr. Louie most recently served as the attorney general of the State of Hawai‘i from 2011 to 2014 — the first Chinese-American attorney general in the nation. As attorney general, Mr. Louie was the chief law enforcement officer for the state, providing advice, counsel, and representation to all aspects of state government (including the Governor) on all legal matters for the state, both civil and criminal. Mr. Louie helped to pass and defend Hawai’i legislation legalizing same sex marriage, settled 30-year-old claims of Native Hawai’ians against the State for $200 million, negotiated a $40 million conservation easement on 665 acres of ocean front land, and worked with other state attorneys general on the national mortgage foreclosure settlement, Internet safety and consumer protection.
Justice McKenna was a trial judge for 17 years before joining the Hawai’i Supreme Court in 2011 as its third woman and as the first open member of the LGBT community of Asian Pacific heritage to serve on a state court of last resort. Throughout her career, she has pursued civil rights, social justice, and equality in access to justice for all. As a young associate in the early 1980’s, she successfully advocated for her firm to provide 50 hours of annual billable hour credit for pro bono time, a policy that was also later adopted by other Hawai’i firms. Justice McKenna oversaw implementation of Hawai’i’s court interpreter certification program, instituted a policy requiring free language access for all participants in Oahu’s family courts as the then presiding judge, then advocated for adoption of the same policy for the entire judiciary. As an appellate and trial judge over the last 22 years, she has ruled in many high profile and important cases.
Judge Thapar was nominated by President George W. Bush to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2007, making him the nation’s first South Asian American Article III judge. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Thapar served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While U.S. attorney, Judge Thapar was appointed to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee.
NAPABA congratulates the 2015 Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award recipients and thanks them for paving the way for Asian Pacific American attorneys.
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) is the national association of Asian Pacific American attorneys, judges, law professors, and law students. NAPABA represents the interests of over 50,000 attorneys and approximately 75 national, state, and local Asian Pacific American bar associations. Its members include solo practitioners, large firm lawyers, corporate counsel, legal services and non-profit attorneys, and lawyers serving at all levels of government.
NAPABA continues to be a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting Asian Pacific American communities. Through its national network of committees and affiliates, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity of the federal and state judiciaries, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of color in the legal profession.
For More Information, Contact: Brett Schuster, Communications Manager [email protected], 202-775-9555
NAPABA Announces Its 2015 Best Lawyers Under 40
WASHINGTON — The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) has selected 14 attorneys to receive the 2015 Best Lawyers Under 40 Award (BU40). The BU40 recognizes talented individuals in the Asian Pacific American (APA) legal community who are under the age of 40 and have achieved prominence and distinction in their respective fields while demonstrating a strong commitment to the APA community at relatively early stages in their careers.
The BU40 Award will be presented on Nov. 5, 2015, during the 2015 NAPABA Convention in New Orleans, to the following recipients:
Christine Bautista — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Christopher Y. Chan — RedMart Limited
Mark J. Furuya — Clark Construction Group LLC
Josh M. Hsu — U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Office of Senator Patrick Leahy
Miranda L. Lam — McCarthy Tétrault LLP
Gloria Lee — Rutan & Tucker LLP
Christine Li — Nationwide
Sujit Raman — U.S. Department of Justice
Darren S. Teshima — Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Stacey H. Wang — Holland & Knight
Karen I. Wu — Perlman & Perlman LLP
Hli Xyooj — Farmers’ Legal Action Group Inc.
Amy Yoshimi Yeung — ZeniMax Media Inc.
Gary Zhao — SmithAmundsen LLC
“These distinguished lawyers represent some of the best in their field under the age of 40,” said NAPABA President George C. Chen. “As these 14 men and women continue to make strides in their respective careers, the pipeline for national Asian Pacific American leaders in the legal profession appears bright.”
The 2015 class of honorees continues the BU40 legacy of excellence and leadership in both the legal and APA communities. This year’s BU40 honorees have vast and varied experiences — representing clients in nationwide high-stake and complex business litigation matters, investigating violations of federal securities laws, providing legal services to family and underrepresented farmers, serving as the senior counsel to a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and assistant general counsel for one of the nation’s oldest construction firms. NAPABA congratulates the 2015 Best Lawyers Under 40 award winners and looks forward to their future successes.
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) is the national association of Asian Pacific American attorneys, judges, law professors, and law students. NAPABA represents the interests of over 40,000 attorneys and approximately 75 national, state, and local Asian Pacific American bar associations. Its members include solo practitioners, large firm lawyers, corporate counsel, legal services and non-profit attorneys, and lawyers serving at all levels of government.
NAPABA continues to be a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting Asian Pacific American communities. Through its national network of committees and affiliates, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity of the federal and state judiciaries, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of color in the legal profession.
NAPABA congratulates the newly-elected officers of the NAPABA Board of Governors for the 2015-16 board year. They will be sworn into office at the Installation Banquet held on Nov. 7, 2015, during the 27th Annual NAPABA Convention in New Orleans.
The following individuals were elected by the NAPABA membership:
President Elect: Cyndie M. Chang Vice President for Finance and Development: Alexander M. Lee Vice President for Membership: Tacie H. Yoon Vice President for Programs and Operations: Pankit J. Doshi Vice President for Communications: Sun E. Choi Treasurer: Steven Y. Reeves Secretary: Brad Yamauchi
In addition to these newly-elected officers, Jin Y. Hwang will serve as President and George C. Chen will serve as Immediate Past President. Joining the officers on the NAPABA Board of Governors will be ten regional governors and four at-large board members.
The NAPABA Board of Governors will appoint two At-Large Board Members to each serve a two-year term beginning with the 2015-2016 bar year. The NAPABA Nominating and Elections Committee invites all members in good standing to apply to be At-Large Board Members by submitting a statement of interest and completing a short demographic survey before 6 p.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015.
For additional information, click here to review the complete At-Large Board Members Guidelines and to apply online.
The 2015 NAPABA Convention will mark the sixth year that the Prospective Partners Program (PPP) will be taking place during the convention. The principal objective of PPP is to help increase the number of Asian and Pacific American partners at major law firms through introduction, mentorship, and relationship building. The PPP seeks to identify senior associates or of counsel from major law firms who are approaching consideration for partnership, provide them with mentorship, and connect them with senior in-house counsel to whom they will have an opportunity to introduce themselves and the services of their firms during sessions to be held at the convention.
Senior associates who might be interested in the Program are encouraged to apply for this unique opportunity. Priority will be given to candidates based in the New Orleans metropolitan area. Information about the program is available on the NAPABA website. Applications should be returned no later than Sept. 15, 2015. The program sessions will take place during the NAPABA Convention in New Orleans, La., from Nov. 5-8. Specific dates and times will be announced as the convention approaches.
