Tag: pro bono and community service committee

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Congratulations to AABANY Pro Bono and Community Service Committee Co-Chair Karen Yau for Receiving NAPABA’s 2020 Pro Bono Award

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:

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Thank You to AABANY’s Remote Clinic Volunteer Attorneys and Students

To meet the continuing need of the AAPI community for assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, AABANY’s Pro Bono and Community Service Committee launched its Remote Legal Assistance Clinic this summer. Since June, Clinic attorney volunteers have received 138 calls from individuals with limited English proficiency and have assisted 116 callers from the AAPI community with their legal matters involving housing, immigration, criminal law, small business, matrimonial and family law, elder law, and trusts and estates. This would not have been possible without the dedicated volunteer attorneys, generously giving of their expertise and time, and the law students, whose multilingual assistance have been indispensable in facilitating access for our LEP community members. A special note of recognition to May Wong and Judy Lee, for spearheading the operation of the Remote Clinic, and to William Lee, for leading and mentoring the highly prolific AABANY COVID Student Task Force whose volunteers have been instrumental in publicizing the Remote Clinic and other AABANY COVID-19 Related Resources through social media platforms and door-to-door campaigns in local New York City neighborhoods.

AABANY deeply expresses its appreciation to the following volunteer attorneys:

Asako Aiba
Youngjin Choi
Rina Gurung
Thomas Hou
Eugene Kim
Karen King
Ming Chu (Judy) Lee
William Lee
Beatrice Leong
Zhixian Jessie Liu
Yan Sin
Samantha Sumilang
Ada Wang
Edmond Wong
May Wong
Siyan Joane Wong
Angela Wu
Shengyang Wu
Karen Kithan Yau

AABANY deeply expresses its appreciation to the following law student volunteers and active APALSAs:

Jenna Agatep
Nanako Arai
Justina Chen
Chao-Yung (Kloe) Chiu
Esther Choi
Jing Chu
Jeremy Chu
Long Dang
Andersen Gu
Alex Hwang
Dianna Lam
Connie Lee
Olympia Moy
Yang Ni
Anthony Park
Jenny Park
Annalee Patel
Xinyi Shen
Annie Tan
Meng Zhang

Asian Pacific American Law Student Associations at Brooklyn Law, Cardozo, Columbia, Cornell, CUNY, Fordham, Harvard, Hofstra, New York Law School, New York University, Seton Hall, St. John’s.

Additional thanks to Jenna Agatep, AALFNY Pro Bono Scholar, Kwok Ng, and Karen Lin, for ongoing administrative assistance with the Remote Clinic.

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NYCCHR Presents: Combatting Anti-Asian Racism in the Age of the Coronavirus (Mandarin)

On July 9, 2020, the New York City Commission on Human Rights (NYCCHR) will be hosting a virtual panel in Mandarin titled “Combatting Anti-Asian Racism in the Age of the Coronavirus.”

The event is in collaboration with the Chinese-American Family Alliance for Mental Health and the Academy of Medical & Public Health Services.

Panelists include: Flora Ferng, Human Rights Specialist at the NYCCHR; Russel Jeung, PhD, Chair and Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University; and Kwok Kei Ng, Co-Vice Chair of the Pro Bono and Community Service Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of New York.

For more information, see below.

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AABANY Provides Anti-Sexual Harassment Training to Community Organizations

The Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) was invited by the Asian American Federation and some of its member agencies – not-for-profit organizations that have substantial Chinese-speaking staff – to help with training their limited-English-proficient staff in their native languages on the prevention of sexual harassment in order to meet the new requirements under the New York State and New York City Human Rights Law.

On behalf of AABANY,  Karen Kithan Yau, a co-chair of the Pro Bono and Community Service Committee and Eric Su, a co-chair of the Labor and Employment Law Committee, both of whom are long-time employment lawyers, representing workers and employers respectively, gave three trainings, one in Cantonese Chinese, one in Mandarin Chinese, and one in English. The trainings took place in late September and early October. The training participants included kitchen and housekeeping staff, part-time teachers, museum staff, policy advocates, and an executive director. The discussion was rich, lively, and illuminating.

Every New York State employer is now required to provide sexual harassment training o their employees annually. That means that, as of October 9, 2019, every employer should have provided their first such training. Moreover, the New York State and City laws now protect virtually all employees, including contractors, subcontractors, vendors, consultants or others providing services from sexual harassment in the workplace. Thus the need to provide linguistically and culturally competent instruction is acute. The New York City Human Rights Commission has provided impressive training materials, including online trainings in 11 languages. However, there remain employees who will need training in their native languages. Experienced employment attorneys or skilled trainers of human resources areas who are linguistically and culturally competent will continue to be needed.

Learn more about AABANY’s Pro Bono and Community Service Committee here. Learn more about AABANY’s Labor and Employment Law Committee here. Thanks to Karen and Eric for providing these trainings to organizations serving the Asian American community.

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Access to Justice, Legal Needs, and APA Communities

On January 29, 2019, a CLE panel on Access to Justice, Legal Needs and APA Communities was held by AABANY at Cardozo Law School. The panel was organized as a part of an impressive collaborative effort between AABANY’s Academic, Government Service & Public Interest (GSPI), Pro Bono & Community Service and Student Outreach Committees. The panel came from a broad mix of public interest attorneys, law professors and private practitioners. The moderators for the panel were Academic Committee co-chair Suzanne Kim (Professor of Law, Rutgers University) and GSPI co-chair Jonathan Hernandez (Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Society).

The panelists were:

Rina Gurung, Esq., Senior Court Attorney (Trial Part)
NYS Unified Court System

Donna Hae Kyun Lee, Senior Associate Dean of Clinical Programs & Professor
CUNY School of Law

Sussan Lee, Esq., Appellate Counsel
Center for Appellate Litigation

Beatrice Leong, Esq., Associate
Parmet & Zhou LLC; co-chair, AABANY GSPI Committee

Tiffany Ma, Esq., Partner
Young & Ma LLP

Pauline Yeung-Ha, Esq., Partner
Grimaldi & Yeung; co-chair, AABANY Pro Bono Committee

The event discussed how lack of access to income-based legal assistance and to the judicial system affects lower- and middle-income families and individuals, including New York City’s Asian & Pacific American communities that experience under-recognized poverty. Using multiple examples drawn from their own experiences as attorneys, the panelists discussed the impacts of this civil justice gap in family law, elder law, housing, employment law, domestic violence, immigration, language-access, and access to courts. The panelists also encouraged all concerned attorneys and law students alike to engage in pro bono work and community service.

Attendees at the event included AABANY President James Cho, numerous AABANY Committee Chairs, law students and attorneys from a wide range of backgrounds.  Attorney attendees also received 1.5 hours of CLE credit under the new Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias requirement.  After the panel presentation, Pro Bono Committee co-chair Karen Kithan Yau, made a direct appeal to all the attendees to support AABANY’s monthly Pro Bono Clinic, whether as volunteers or as donors or both, as ways to help tackle the many pressing issues discussed by the panel. 

Thanks to all of the speakers for a compelling and informative discussion. Thanks to all who attended and to Cardozo Law School APALSA and Cardozo Law School for hosting.

We thank Kevin Hsi, Co-Chair of AABANY’s Government Service & Public Interest Committee, for providing the photos and write up for this post.

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Celebrate APA Heritage Month with AABANY

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and AABANY is celebrating in a variety of ways:

  • May 14 – Hon. Jeffrey K. Oing, Justice of the Supreme Court, State of New York (and long-time AABANY member), will be speaking at Kramer Levin’s APA Heritage Month Celebration, at Kramer Levin’s midtown Manhattan office.  RSVP required by May 10.
  • May 18-20 – NYSBA Commercial and Federal Litigation Section Spring Meeting, in association with the Young Lawyers Section, at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York.  Past President and current Judiciary Committee Co-Chair James Chou will be speaking on Sunday morning on the panel entitled, “Your Path Through the Court and to the Bench: What You Need to Know to Get Through a Day in Court.”
  • May 22, Asian American Arts Alliance (a4), Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) and AABANY present: “Revisiting Vincent: The Legacy of the Vincent Chin Case 30 Years Later,” a re-enactment of the Vincent Chin trial, with introduction and talkback led by Hon. Denny Chin and Dean Frank Wu, at New York Law School, starting at 6:30 pm.  Tickets now available for purchase in advance.
  • May 24 – AABANY’s Litigation Committee hosts a Happy Hour at the Hill on 29th and Third Ave., starting at 6:30 pm.  Meet and mingle with members of the Litigation Committee.
  • May 24 – AALDEF’s Young Professionals Committee and Cadwalder Wickersham & Taft host a screening of the documentary “Sing Your Song,” about Harry Belafonte and his role in fighting for civil rights for all Americans.  AALDEF Staff Attorney Jerry Vattamala will take part in a Q&A after the screening and discuss the legacy of Harry Belafonte’s activism and its meaning for today’s generation.
  • May 30 – AABANY joins the Asian American Law Fund of New York (AALFNY) in hosting the Annual Summer Reception, open to the legal community and law students.  It will take place at Edwards Wildman Palmer starting at 6 pm, and there is no cost to attend but RSVP is required by May 25.
  • May 31 – June 2: NAPABA Eastern Super Regional Conference, hosted by APALA-NJ at Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.  Many AABANY members and leaders will be there, speaking on panels and reconnecting with NAPABA friends.  Registration now open.

It’s another event-filled APA Heritage Month.  We hope to see you at one or more of the great programs listed above!

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