An Optimist In Meeting The Challenge

An excerpt from an essay by Angela Oh

 

In November 2006, Ben W. Heineman, Jr., former senior vice president and general counsel of General Electric Corporation, delivered a speech at Yale Law School as the keynote in The Practicing Lawyer and Public Interest program lecture series. The subject of his remarks was “Lawyers as Leaders.” His remarks inspired Angela Oh to write this essay — an open letter to the Korean American legal community about the role of Korean American lawyers in leading society toward a common good through valuing public interest law and the development of lawyers as leaders.

 

Heineman says, “I am an optimist and I believe lawyer as leader is an ideal that can be realized.  At the least, the quest can be a key to a fulfilled professional life, life that merges who we are with what we do.  Today is a wonderful time to be blessed with legal training and to be able to go out and take on the enormous challenges of a difficult world – with an inspiration to lead tempered by humility at the complexity, difficulty, and discipline, and self-sacrifice inherent in the task.”

: (Left to right) Present and former KABA members and leaders Howard Halm, Angela Oh, John Lim Richard Ruger.

Korean American lawyers have done it before. I’ve seen it. Korean American lawyers can do it again – at a whole new level, in a whole new world, before the next crisis.  We can even go beyond a dream and actually engage ourselves in the practice of law in a way that opens the possibility of averting crisis because we choose not to shy away from the challenge. As we plan our activities going forward, KABA should pledge to continue its commitment to public interest practice, find ways for lawyers who are inclined to help build toward a common good do so with greater ease and as a natural consequence of their talent as practitioners in the civil and criminal justice system, and urge the law schools in our area to take up a new subject for law students as a core curriculum offering:  Lawyers as Leaders. 

We did it in 1992 with nothing but instinct.  We should do it in 2007 and going forward with intentionality and by deliberate choice in organizing our community pro bono clinics, selecting our Public Interest Fellow, engaging in developing CLE programs and more.  We know that the real blessing comes when we can use our skills and talents in the service things that we believe in and that promote more than the material well-being of our community.  Happy new year – the year of the golden pig is one that uplifts the spirit of generosity and prosperity!

 

Angela E. Oh is Of Counsel at Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks & Lincenberg, PC.  She was the President of KABA in 1993, and is a longtime KABA board member.