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Great seeing so many of you at the NAPABA 2025 convention in Denver on November 6 through 8! AABA Chicago had a great showing, including the Wen Ho Lee re-enactment by our group and an amazing showing at the 2025 Judge Thomas Tang and Dr. Pearl Tang Moot Court Competition!
AABA Chicago members led a re-enactment and discussion of United States v. Wen Ho Lee, a significant case in Asian-American legal history. The case offers many important lessons for today, including how sloppy investigations by the government can harm people and the public. If espionage did happen at the nuclear weapons laboratories, the misguided prosecution of Dr. Lee helped someone get away with it - a tragedy in addition to how Dr. Lee was treated.
Thanks to Brian Sun, who was one of Dr. Lee's attorneys, and AABA Chicago members and friends Stephen Lee, Vikas Didwania, Michael Chu, Ann H. Chen, Judy He, Grayson Walker, Huy Nguyen, Ivy Lee, Lei Shen, Kimberly Leung, Jean Liu, Amol Parikh, Portia Xiong, Sharon Hwang, Cindy Irani, and Alice Lin for their involvement! And if you missed this presentation, you can see a recording of our May presentation here.
Congratulations to 2025 Tang Moot Court winners Audrey La and Joshua Shimabukuro, semi-finalists Soha Pervaiz and Maheeka Shah, and their coaches Tae Kim and Hellin Jang! Both teams (both from Loyola University Chicago School of Law) met in the semi-finals and the prevailing team won the competition!
AABA congratulates the students and their coaches, and we also thank everyone who supported these students and volunteered their time for this competition, especially the attorneys who served as guest judges, including James Chandler, Shannon Shin, Jenna Kim, Vikas Didwania, Alex Moe, Nazia Hasan, Daniel Fumagalli, Belle Katubig, Michael Cho, Bill Yu, and Melanie Matias.
The Judge Thomas Tang and Dr. Pearl Tang Moot Court Competition (NAPABA Law Foundation) is an appellate advocacy competition sponsored by the NAPABA Law Foundation. It is named after the late Judge Thomas Tang from the Ninth Circuit and his wife, and Loyola students have won the competition more than from any other school! More information here
New Officers and Board Members
We began the 2025-26 bar year on July 1 by welcoming our new officers and board members and then by electing our honorary board members!
Officers:
Board of Directors:
Honorary Board:
We met on July 11 for a retreat to plan the coming year. We have lots of great ideas but would love to hear from you! Please reach out to chicago.aaba@gmail.com or book a Zoom with Stephen Lee at calendly.com/stephenchahnlee
Planning for the NAPABA 2025 Convention
As you probably know, AABA is an affiliate of the National Asian Pacific Bar Association, and one of the big events on our calendar each year is the NAPABA Convention, which will be in Denver this November. Here is some information to help you plan.
The convention begins on November 6 and ends with a gala on November 8 (the photo above is from the 2024 gala). This is a great opportunity to meet other Asian American attorneys and to hear some great panels (including one based on AABA’s Wen Ho Lee event earlier this year).
Before you register, please consider checking your status as a member of AABA member and as a member of NAPABA – members of AABA Chicago are eligible for complimentary membership in the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) and thus save on the registration fee for the convention, but both memberships need to be set up separately.
NAPABA is offering scholarships to help members cover some costs associated with attending the convention. There is a general scholarship as well as one specifically for law students. In the past, scholarship awards have typically ranged from a minimum of $300 to a maximum of $700 and are based on individual circumstances. Scholarships are offered in the form of reimbursements for eligible expenses such as Convention registration, roundtrip travel, ground transportation, and lodging. If you’re interested, the deadlines are August 5 for the general scholarship and September 16 for the law student scholarship. More information is at https://web.cvent.com/event/c3849ced-0c03-437a-94a5-a37c1f5a1354/websitePage:bc6beb64-efc4-43cc-9161-459c9898a463?rt=e6nZNVYT4k-fg2hQGVgDyQ
If you’d like to coordinate with other AABA Chicago members while in Denver, please fill out the form at https://forms.gle/Q6xqDJqVPrJKwkfD8 – we’ll use this to help plan activities and a group photo that we’ll plan to take on Friday November 7 before the lunch session. Please also fill this out if you are applying for a NAPABA scholarship, as we’re looking into ways to help our members attend.
Upcoming AABA Events
Here are some upcoming events:
Check our events page at https://aabaogc.wildapricot.org/Events for additional upcoming events.
We also have a WhatsApp group which you can join if you'd like. Please email chicago.aaba@gmail.com for the link.
Please find attached our April 2025 newsletter, with information about upcoming events.
AABA Chicago has signed onto an amicus brief filed by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a district court’s preliminary injunction order regarding Executive Order 14160.
As stated in the brief: “The plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment and longstanding historical precedent should lead to the inevitable conclusion that EO 14160 is patently unconstitutional.”
AABA joins NAPABA in stating that the Trump administration’s legal arguments distort the holding of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case that established the principle that people born in the United States were citizens even if their parents were not citizens.
Please see the attached PDF for our March 2025 newsletter, which has information on upcoming events, including an April 9 event about birthright citizenship and our annual awards ceremony on May 7.
Please see the attached PDF for our February 2025 newsletter, which has information on upcoming events, recent events, and job announcements.
We encourage our members to read Portrait Project 2.0 and ask our members to contribute to the Project by participating in their latest research survey that focuses on the experiences of lawyers of all backgrounds who have worked in law firms. Please note that completing this survey may take between 20-30 minutes.
Also, don't forget to renew your AABA membership for 2025 here if you have not done so. We also look forward to having new members join us. Please note that National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) affiliate memberships are no longer activated via an AABA Chicago Affiliate Code. AABA Chicago members should now automatically receive free NAPABA affiliate memberships. When renewing your NAPABA affiliate membership, please be sure to select "AABA Greater Chicago" as your primary affiliate. Should you have any questions, please contact chicago.aaba@gmail.com.
AABA congratulates AABA Chicago Honorary Board Member Sonni Williams on her swearing-in on February 11, 2025 at the Will County Courthouse by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Mary Kay O'Brien!
Hon. Sonni Choi Williams was appointed as a Circuit Judge in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, Third Subcircuit to fill the vacancy created by the election of Judge John C. Anderson to the Third District Appellate Court.
Hon. Williams' appointment is a testament to her exceptional leadership, outstanding contributions to the legal community, and continued dedication to public service and the fair and equitable administration of justice.
"I believe Sonni Williams’ professional and personal experiences make her uniquely qualified for the judiciary. Ms. Williams has over 25 years of experience in municipal law, having served as city attorney for Lockport and Peoria, covering virtually every area of the law, including civil, criminal and appellate litigation,” said Justice O’Brien in a statement. “In addition, Ms. Williams has always been personally committed to improving the legal community through her involvement with the Illinois State Bar Association, the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and numerous legal foundations. She will serve the citizens of Will County with distinction in this new role.”
Ms. Williams has been the City Attorney for the city of Lockport since 2017, serving as chief legal officer and representing the city in all cases before the federal and state courts and administrative agencies. From 2000 to 2017 she served as an attorney for the city of Peoria where she supervised the legal department staff attorneys, paralegals and administrative assistants in providing timely professional responses and legal advice, among other duties. She currently serves as President of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA).
From the Supreme Court's announcement:
Ms. Williams earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa and earned her Juris Doctor from the Northern Illinois University College of Law.
In addition to being the first woman of color to serve as President of the ISBA, Ms. Williams' professional affiliations include the Will County Bar Association, the Will County Women's Bar Association, and the Will County Black Lawyers Association. She is a board member of the Korean American Bar Association of Chicago and an honorary board member of the Asian American Bar Association of Greater Chicago. Since 2012 she has served as Hearing Chair for the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, and she was previously a Commissioner of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and a Commissioner of the Illinois Supreme Court Special Committee on Professionalism.
Her awards include receiving the 2020 Alumna of the Year Award from the Northern Illinois University College of Law and the 2015 ISBA Diversity Leadership Award for her long standing, continuing and exceptional commitment to the critical importance of diversity within the Illinois legal community, its judiciary and within the Illinois State Bar Association.
Thanks to all the Chicago attorneys who met up at NAPABA 2024! We had about 100 attorneys attend this year's annual National Asian Pacific American Bar Association convention in Seattle and were thrilled at seeing all the energy that you brought.
Congratulations also to the Chicago attorneys who spoke on panels: James ("Jimmy") Oh, Alan Tse, Stephen Lee, Phong Nguyen, Vic Ramos, Sohil Shah, Vaishali Rao, and Dean Vikram Amar.
Thanks from Belle Katubig (second vice president), Stephen Lee (first vice president), Huy Nguyen (president), and Sang Lee (past president)!
The Asian American Bar Association (AABA) of Greater Chicago congratulates AABA Board Member Sonni Choi Williams on her recent election as the next Third Vice President of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA). Once sworn in, Sonni will be the first female lawyer of color, first Asian American, and first Korean American elected to this position. AABA commends Sonni for her long history of leadership and dedication to the Asian American community and the legal community. We look forward in anticipation to the future of the ISBA and the Illinois legal community under Sonni's leadership.
Asian American Bar Association of
Greater Chicago
321 S Plymouth Court Chicago, IL 60604
