Professional Development Committee Hosts Soft-Launch Event for AABANY’s Wellness Podcast, “Hello… It’s Me!” 

Thank you to all who joined the Professional Development Committee for the soft-launch of AABANY’s Wellness Podcast, “Hello… It’s Me!,” on August 22, 2024. The podcast promotes personal and collective well-being within the legal community and will feature an AABANY member during each episode. Through storytelling, the aim is to emphasize the ABA’s multi-dimensional approach to lawyer well-being, focusing on mental health, emotional well-being, and self-care. By doing so, the Committee is working to remove the stigma around mental health and help our members embrace their true and authentic selves.

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At the soft-launch, Willow Liu, Esq., a steadfast member of the Professional Development Committee and podcast team, moderated the event. The hosts and interviewers, Maggie Poon and Ona Lu, Vice-Chairs of the Professional Development Committee, shared their insights on conducting engaging and open conversations. The event’s special guest, Celina Lee, a former big law attorney turned career coach, author, and host of the “Live Your Dream” podcast, provided deep insights during her interview. A 13-minute podcast clip was presented featuring Celina Lee, who discussed how she focused her goals so that they would align with her values, and enable her to live her dreams. Celina’s advice was that “there’s no one path to create a fulfilling life,” which resonated with the audience and served as  a powerful reminder to stay curious.

The thought-provoking questions from our attendees were much appreciated, and the Professional Development Committee eagerly anticipates hearing more feedback from future participants! If you’re interested in contributing to this podcast, please get in touch with [email protected]

You can listen to the podcast on the following platforms:

AABANY Blog Page: https://blog.aabany.org/podcast/, which contains both “Hello…It’s Me” and our prior podcast series, “The Whole Lawyer Project.”

Apple iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hello-its-me/id1764135581 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLffZY9SRR0PrGu0OEs7Vp1ewavi7utUT4 

Coming soon on Spotify – stay tuned!

Don’t forget to save the date for our in-person official launch on September 17, 2024! For more details and to register please click here

In the News: Law360 Interviews Jane Jeong, host of AABANY’s The Whole Lawyer Project

On March 1, 2021, Law360 published an interview with Jane Jeong, a member of AABANY’s Young Lawyers Committee and the host of its new podcast, The Whole Lawyer Project. Diverging from your typical legal podcast, The Whole Lawyer Project spotlights successful Asian American attorneys and the human side of their profession. As Marco Poggio of Law360 writes, “It tells the life stories that won’t be found on the bio page of a law firm’s website.” Poggio’s interview with Jane centers on how her personal and professional experiences inspired this latest creative venture. Invoking her own identity as a Korean American, an immigrant, and a woman, Jane explains, “there are not many leaders in the law who look like me, that have my background.” In the competitive and high-stress environment of BigLaw, this problem of representation fueled Jane’s imposter syndrome, which led her to start writing about the pitfalls of striving for perfectionism on AABANY’s blog. Now, Jane looks to the AABANY podcast as a new platform for the same passion project: increasing the visibility of Asian American leaders in the legal industry, and sharing her own hard-won lessons about balancing wellness and work. Ultimately, Jane hopes to inspire listeners to pursue their own passions, even when they deviate from preconceived plans or customary paths. “My goal for the podcast is to give people a chance to see what other people are doing in all these different creative ways, both conventionally and unconventionally, and see how life in the law can really fit them, instead of the other way around,” Jane says.


To learn more about the creation and content of The Whole Lawyer Project, Law360’s full interview with Jane can be found here (subscription required).

AABANY is Proud to Launch The Whole Lawyer Podcast, Hosted by Jane Jeong

AABANY is proud to launch its official podcast series, The Whole Lawyer Project, hosted by Jane Jeong, which showcases Asian American attorneys and leaders throughout the nation and the human stories behind their success. 

For Jane, learning about the human stories  —  and sacrifices  — behind our external success is a personal passion and mission. As a member of AABANY’s Young Lawyers Committee, Jane previously wrote about her pursuit of wellness in the legal profession on the AABANY blog, where she published  The Ten Tips Our Asian Parents Never Told Us, Upside Down, and The (COVID) Days of Our Lives

Most recently, Jane shared her story with Law360, in an article entitled The Pursuit Of Wellness In BigLaw: Lessons From My Journey (subscription required). In a heartfelt account, Jane opened up about mental health and wellness issues in Big Law  —  including her personal experiences with the pressures of the industry, the costs of perfectionism, reaching an emotional breaking point and, as a potential blueprint for others, how she has set boundaries and made changes to her daily routine to take care of herself. “I conflated sacrifice with success and exhaustion with excellence. I just continued to reach and reach — demanding that I become the perfect attorney I knew I was not, waiting for the day I could finally stop acting and just be,” she writes. 

Together with Jane, AABANY is proud to further explore the human side of lawyering in The Whole Lawyer Project. The inaugural episodes of the podcast, which feature immediate past AABANY President Brian Song and AboveTheLaw Founder, David Lat, can be found under the tab for The Whole Lawyer Project on the AABANY blog. It can also be found on Spotify and iTunes. For anyone hoping to gain further insight into the human stories behind our external success, it is well worth a listen.