<Begin Segment 23>

MC: So you spent three years in law school, and you graduated in 1979. And what did you do after you passed the bar exam? Where did you practice?

LB: My third year of law school I clerked for a small law firm called Minami, Tomine, and Lew in Oakland, California. It was probably one of the first Asian American law firms in the country, as far as I know. The attorneys in the firm had started the Asian Law Caucus in Oakland, and left the caucus to start their own practice. And I started clerking for them in my third year of law school. Small firm, five, six Asian American attorneys on Lake Merritt in Oakland. Struggling practice. And after I graduated from law school, I actually took two half-time jobs. I took a half-time position as an attorney with the law firm, and a half-time position doing academic support work at Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley Boalt Hall.

MC: So you were the administrator, a law school administrator, and you were practicing as a lawyer in that first year after law school?

LB: Uh-huh. Calling it a law school administrator is rather glorifying it much more than it really was. As you know, that also was the very, very early days of minority academic support programs. And in fact, I was probably one of the first ones around. Law schools established academic support programs in response to special admissions programs, admitting more persons of color and people from non-traditional backgrounds. At Boalt, my position was a half-time position in a windowless, converted janitor's office. And so I doubt anyone viewed me as an administrator at the time. I think it's really great that the school had the program. The program certainly was not on the scale that academic support programs are on now, today, at various law schools where they are very well established and really well-supported, many of them are well-supported. So I did that half-time, and then worked at the firm half-time for a year. And then after that, I went with the law firm full-time.

MC: When you first started practicing law, did any experiences occur -- and this is the same question I had with respect to legal education -- that were discriminatory in nature, targeted at you either because you were a woman or a person of color or perhaps both?

LB: Fortunately, I joined this all-Asian American law firm. So that was really very much home, and it was almost like coming home to Gardena, in fact. Dale Minami grew up in Gardena, so I actually knew his family, growing up in Gardena. So it was really nice for me to be in that firm because it combined not only my brand new legal career, but also that sense of coming home and being in the Asian American community. So race was not an issue at the firm as it could be if I were with another firm. I was the only woman in the firm. But that was really okay, too.

However, going out into practice, certainly there were many issues. Again, I was a member of this first crop of minorities graduating from law schools, so minorities just started to come out of law schools in large numbers at that period of time. So the bar was not particularly diverse. And there were numerous instances where I knew race was an issue. Not that I felt that I was discriminated against as far as people calling me incompetent or calling me racist names, but for example, I would walk into the courtroom, on several occasions I can think of, and be asked immediately if I were the interpreter or asked where my lawyer was because it just seemed inconceivable, I think, to some people that an Asian woman, maybe a young-looking Asian woman, could possibly be an attorney.

I had one instance where I was handling a case representing some clients in Hong Kong. And we'd served some papers in Hong Kong, and the question was whether we had served the papers in compliance with the law of Hong Kong as required by international treaty. And the judge said that he wanted a declaration from a Hong Kong attorney, a Hong Kong barrister, on this issue of Hong Kong law, and he wanted to make sure that I had it translated. And I told the judge that they speak, in fact, the Queen's English, and it did not have to be translated, and the judge insisted that it had to be translated. And I thought how strange that this judge would automatically assume that because it was Hong Kong, they didn't speak English.

Personally, I felt on numerous occasions that I would walk into depositions or other situations with other lawyers, and they would look at me, and feel like, "Oh, this is going to be an easy win because I've got this Asian, quiet Asian woman on the other side." So I suppose I was really conscious of having to be very good at what I do and be particularly articulate and be particularly smart, to make sure that my clients knew and the other attorneys knew that I was good at what I did, regardless of the way that I looked, and that the way I looked didn't define me.

MC: As you know, these kinds of issues are still problems for women of color practicing law. I'm wondering, besides being super-competent at what you do as a lawyer, whether there were other coping mechanisms or other ways that you sort of shored up your confidence in yourself as a lawyer at this point in time, at the early point in your career?

LB: I suppose, again, it comes back to the strategies I had relied on much earlier: good mentors, good friends. There were some wonderful mentors out there, Asian women who had come before me, and in fact, when I started practicing, a group was formed called Asian Women Lawyers. And we would get together for brunch every Sunday morning at someone's house. And there were a number of Asian women lawyers who had entered the practice before me, and they were just great as far as reaching out to the younger attorneys and just providing us support and advice and talking about issues. So they were there.

There were also other mentors in the profession itself. There were some wonderful judges who I got to know. I got to know a number of judges who really supported me and always had a kind word of encouragement for me. And we finally got an Asian American judge, Ken Kawaichi, who served on the superior court in Alameda County, and that was great, to know that there was an Asian American judge sitting on the bench. Now, we have so many. We have a number of them. Not enough, but we have a number sitting on the bench. But even just that one judge who got appointed, there was a friendly, familiar face when I went to court, someone whose courtroom I could stop in and say hi, and those things meant a great deal.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.