Left to right, California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu with his co-authors, Yale Law School graduates Xiaonan April Hu, Christine Kwon and Eric Chung. (Photo courtesy of Goodwin H. Liu)
A new report released by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) and Yale Law School, titled A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law, is the first-ever comprehensive study of Asian Americans in the legal profession.
The two-year study — authored by California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin H. Liu, recent Yale law graduates Eric Chung, Xiaonan April Hu and Christine Kwon, and Yale law postgraduate associate Samuel Dong — included a dozen focus groups and a national survey of over 600 Asian American lawyers.
The survey revealed that Asian Americans identify lack of access to mentors and contacts as a primary barrier to career advancement. They also report being perceived as careful and hard-working, but not assertive or creative. “Whereas Asian Americans are regarded as having the ‘hard skills’ required for lawyerly competence, they are regarded as lacking many important ‘soft skills,’” the study found. More than half of the Asian American lawyers surveyed said they “sometimes” or “often” experience implicit discrimination in the workplace.
Learn more about the project and its development in this Washington Post article.