Saturday, November 17, 2012
Highlights
from today’s NAPABA D.C. Convention:
Wendy
C. Shiba was the President-Elect and 2012 Convention Chair. She proved to be both an amazing speaker and
a wonderful moderator at this year’s D.C. Convention.
I
attended NAPABA CLE Breakout Session
“Attorneys Reaching Equity Ranks: Past
and Future Perspectives.” This
session was moderated by Linda Kordziel, Principal at Fish and Richardson P.C.
and consisted of a panel which included Ching-Lee Fukuda, Partner at Ropes
& Gray LLP, Jim Goh, Shareholder at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak &
Steward, P.C., Eric Kuwana, Partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP, and Cedric
Tan, Partner at Crowell & Moring LLP.
This session focuse[d] on “how the APA community has only recently seen
an emergence of attorneys attaining equity status as partners or shareholders
at their respective law firms and corporate counsel rising to senior levels in
significant numbers. Prior to this
occurrence, the APA community reached a significant benchmark by breaking through
the glass ceiling of attorneys being elevated to partner or shareholder status
at law firms or attorneys going ‘in-house.’
This panel focuse[d] on recent achievements of APA attorneys reaching
equity status or senior corporate counsel positions by looking at the past and
sharing personal experiences, challenges, and milestones. The panel also discusse[d] what significant
achievement lies ahead for APA attorneys as the APA community continues to grow
in the coming years.”
Here
are some of the interesting points of this session:
·
Many
firms today are asked to provide a more diverse Pitch Team for their in-house
clients. A general counsel (GC) in the
audience commented that her company not only asks outside counsel to provide more
diverse pitch teams, but that her company also tracks whether selected team
members have been appropriately assigned based on their credentials and
skillsets. Such companies may also
evaluate the billing characteristics of a selected team member as well as
whether that individual is assigned on future related projects.
·
The
Panel recommended that if you are selected for a Pitch Team, it’s important
that you make sure to “pitch in.” Use
these types of opportunities to show how valuable you are to the team.
·
Make
sure you clearly understand what an equity partnership means in your law
firm. It is important for associates to
understand what type of voting power is given to a capital partner in their
firm. The roles and power given to a
partner may be different between law firms.
·
Remember
to strive to be indispensable to the attorneys within your organization or law
firm.
·
Don’t
count any partner out! Strive to give
your best work to everyone because a discounted partner may end up speaking out
loudly against you.
It
was great meeting so many wonderful people at the NAPABA convention! I got to know a couple of students from
Georgetown Law School. Also, one lucky
person at the convention actually won a raffle drawing for the Mercedes SUV
shown behind us.
I
attended a one-hour Law Student Eight
Minute Mentoring session that paired up a law student with an
attorney. Each attorney-student pair had
eight minutes to introduce themselves to each other so that the attorney could
provide some helpful tips to the student.
This session was pretty interesting because I got to talk to a variety
of different types of attorneys working in the following areas:
·
JAG
·
US
Attorney’s office
·
European
Oil company
·
white
collar criminal litigation.
·
General
Counsel of Rosetta Stone
This
year’s feature event was “A Conversation with Supreme Court Justice Sonia M.
Sotomayor.” Justice Sotomayor is the
Court’s 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female
justice. Co-moderators were honorable
Denny Chin, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Wendy Wen
Yun Chang, Partner, Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP. In this truly inspiring discussion, J. Sotomayor
shared with us many things.
·
J.
Sotomayor told us about her upbringing of growing up in New York City. Because her father died when she was nine, J.
Sotomayor was raised by only her mother. J. Sotomayor’s mother, although she had not
gone to college herself, nonetheless emphasized the importance of education to
young Sonia. Today, J. Sotomayor, like
her mother, advocates the importance and value of education. She tells us that she believes that with an education,
a person is capable of anything. She also
shares with us the joy of having witnessed her mother finally achieve a
life-long dream of completing college at the age of 57.
·
J.
Sotomayor shares with us that, as a minority, she has learned to live in two
worlds. She believes that living in two worlds is possible. She warns us that it is important not to
abandon our past; rather, we should anchor ourselves in the present but never
to forget where we come from. Also, it
is important to open the door behind us for others to follow.
·
When
asked what it is like to be at the Supreme Court, she said it feels like a “perpetual
en banc.”
·
When
asked about the hardest thing about being a Supreme Court Judge, J. Sotomayor said
that it is the heavy burden of being part of the final court in the U.S. This burden is heavy because the Supreme Court
provides the final answer; this answer is final regardless of whether the
decision is right or wrong.
·
J.
Sotomayor asks us all to think about what we each leave behind. That when you are a person of color, you
don’t have a choice and therefore must take the opportunities that are
presented to you in order to advance your community. She tells us that this is why she had
accepted the 2nd Cir. Court Judge position, even though she wanted
to remain as a District Court Judge. J. Sotomayor
tells us that we should strive for these things for the little boy or girl who
will look up to us one day so that we can inspire them to think to themselves “I
can do that too.”
Thank
you William Mitchell NAPALSA for sponsoring my D.C. NABAPA/NAPALSA Convention
experience. I had a truly amazing time networking and learning about the
practice of law from a very impressive community of Asian Pacific Attorneys
(APA). I strongly encourage William
Mitchell students next year to attend the 2013 Convention, which will be hosted
in Kanas.
Tip: If you go, make sure you have plenty of
business/school cards!
- Grace J. Kim
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