Tell us about your community growing up. Looking back, how did they shape who you are now?

I grew up in San Diego and attended public schools. As a kid, I didn’t feel a close connection to any particular ethnic or cultural community. I wasn’t sure how I fit in—partly because I’m mixed-race, and partly because my father’s ancestors moved from China to Hawai‘i in the nineteenth century, so at the time, I felt my experience didn’t fit the “typical” Asian American immigrant narrative.

Describe your journey to law school. What motivated you to apply?

Although I didn’t have any lawyers in my family, I was interested in politics and government from a young age. After college, I explored non-legal career paths, but during the post-2008 recession, I felt stymied by lack of opportunities and decided to apply to law school. When I was in the midst of the law school admissions process, I became fascinated with marriage equality litigation, and at one point, was even reading daily transcripts of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger bench trial. By then, I had already decided to attend law school, but that confirmed that I’d made the right choice!

What was your law school experience like?

In law school, I had the opportunity to participate in Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. The highlight for me was marathon brief-editing sessions with the clinic’s instructors, Pam Karlan and Jeff Fisher, in which we put the Word document up on a big screen and edited line-by-line through group discussion. As a practicing lawyer, I’m always trying to approach that same level of rigor in the writing process.

Did you know about appellate work in law school? If not, when and how did it first get on your radar and why were you drawn to it?

I was vaguely aware of appellate work as a career path, but even after my experience in the Supreme Court clinic, I didn’t have a concrete sense of how to make it happen, other than working for a big-firm appellate practice in Washington, DC, which didn’t interest me because I wanted to stay on the West Coast. It was only through clerking and then my first few years of practice that I came to understand that there are many ways to be an appellate lawyer.

Tell us about one of your appellate cases that you found particularly meaningful.

A couple of years ago, the California Supreme Court appointed me to brief and argue a case as amicus curiae in support of the decision below because the party that prevailed in the Court of Appeal lacked representation. The case was about whether an employee is protected by one of California’s whistleblower statutes if he or she complains about wrongdoing that the employer already knows about. I had my work cut out for me, and ultimately lost the case, but it was a fun opportunity to be a true friend of the court by arguing a side of the case that would otherwise have gone unrepresented.

How often do you encounter other Asians and/or Pacific Islanders in the appellate field? Why do you think that representation is important?

I encounter other Asian American lawyers with some regularity. Within the California Department of Justice, for example, my direct supervisor is Helen Hong, our state’s Principal Deputy Solicitor General. And I ultimately report to Attorney General Rob Bonta, the second Asian American to hold that office.

California’s appellate bench is also increasingly diverse. The California Supreme Court has had several Asian American justices in recent years, including my former boss, Justice Liu. In addition, there are now a number of Asian American judges on our intermediate appellate courts—both on the Ninth Circuit and the California Court of Appeal.

Because of the hard work of those who came before me, becoming an appellate lawyer felt relatively normal—I had the privilege of not feeling like a trailblazer. I recognize this is still not the case for AAPI lawyers in other parts of the country, nor is it the case for other historically underrepresented communities. And there’s still plenty of work to be done, particularly in private practice, where there are many talented AAPI lawyers at the associate level but few appellate partners.

What advice would you give to a law student of color who aspires to be where you are now?

Consider opportunities in government service, either at the outset of your career or later down the line. There are many jobs at the state and local level, or at federal agencies or U.S. Attorney’s Offices, where you’ll get opportunities to brief and argue appeals. You don’t have to be at the U.S. Solicitor General’s office to do appellate work as a government lawyer.

What’s one thing law schools and/or the appellate bar can do to ensure our highest courts are representative of all our communities?

Continue to support organizations like The Appellate Project!