WLALA's Executive Committee with Supervisor Holly Mitchell (from left to right): Jeannine Taylor, Noelle Natoli, Mary McKelvey, Supervisor Holly Mitchell, Janet Hong, Jennie Wang VonCannon and Farah Tabibkhoei
Dignity and Grace – Hon. Ketanji Brown Jackson
by Mary McKelvey
Hon. Ketanji Brown Jackson anchored her opening remarks to the Senate on March 21, 2022, with a hallmark of femaleness – she honored her family. She candidly addressed the issue that all working mothers struggle with when she spoke directly to her daughters, publicly admitting that she “did not always get the balance [between work and home] right.” None of us get the balance right, but somehow—in her open and heartfelt public admission—she exonerated us all.
Partnering with Your Mentor: The Shortcuts to Success
Presented by WLALA's Career Mentoring Committee
Virtual Mentor Jet for UCLA Law Students
27th Annual Litigators Forum:
The Future of Litigation As We Emerge From COVID-19
On March 16, 2022, WLALA's Litigation Section put on a hybrid in-person and virtual program for the 27th Annual Litigators Forum, held at the Los Angeles office of Sidley Austin LLP. Featuring powerhouse panelists Hon. Philip Gutierrez, Chief Judge of the Central District of California, Hon. Candace Cooper, JAMS Mediator, Hon. Michelle Williams Court, Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Lourdes DeArmas, trial attorney at Dolan Law Firm, and Stacy Horth-Neubert, counsel at Sidley Austin LLP, and moderated by Melody Saadian, attorney at Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi LLP, the program featured candid assessments about the impact of COVID-19 on litigation now and in the future.
Coming Back Together for Food from the Bar
WLALA Foundation President Jennifer Leland, Black Women Lawyers President Lisa McLean, and other bar leaders attend the FFTB leaders’ kickoff brunch on March 27, 2022 
After two years mostly virtual, the Los Angeles Food from the Bar campaign is BACK – live and in person. This annual campaign to support the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank starts on April 15 and will run through May 31, 2022. WLALA has been a proud supporter of Food from the Bar (also known as “FFTB”) since its inception fourteen years ago, and will be counting on its members, once again, to continue that historical support.

There are two primary ways to participate in the campaign: 1) volunteer; and 2) donate. Or organize and participate in a fundraising activity within a WLALA Committee or Section. Or get together with a few friends, form a trivia team, and compete in “The Munger Games” (a team trivia contest).  The Munger Games will be virtual once again this year and will be held at 5 pm on Wednesday, April 27. Save that date!

Also, save the date of the morning of Saturday, May 14, which has been designated as Sister Bar Association Volunteer Day of Service at the LA Food Bank. We hope to see members of WLALA, Black Women Lawyers, Latina Lawyers Bar Association, and Asian Pacific American Women Lawyers Association out in force that day at the Food Bank. Details on how to register for Bar Association Volunteer Day will be coming soon.

The disruption created by the COVID-19 pandemic has placed many vulnerable members of our communities, particularly children who are reliant on federally subsidized meals served through public school systems, at increased risk of hunger. The LA Food Bank is facing a sustained challenge in meeting increased needs while coping with fewer volunteers.  For more information about childhood hunger in Los Angeles County – which has the highest number of hungry children than any other county in the country – see lafoodbank.org.

You can make an online donation with a credit card at WLALA’s FFTB online giving page or write a check made payable to “Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.” How much to give? That is up to you. Perhaps what you saved in not having to pay for parking or gas over the last two years, or in not buying lunch or coffee every day you would have otherwise been in the office. Aside from being the right thing to do, this campaign is still all about “competitive giving” and feeding as many people as possible.  Every dollar donated translates into four meals that the Food Bank can provide.  All contributions are welcome, no matter what the amount.  Out of many small contributions comes a big impact on our community.

If you have ideas or success stories in supporting Food from the Bar remotely or virtually, please share! If you have any questions or would like further information, please reach out to WLALA’s Food from the Bar liaison, Kathleen M. McDowell by email or at 213-683-9134.
Hon. Beverly Reid O’Connell Scholarship
The WLALA Foundation is pleased to offer the 2022 Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded annually to a woman high school senior who is (a) interested in the field of law or public service and (b) who was inspired in this career choice by the WLALA Foundation’s Power Lunch Program, the WLALA organization, or by a WLALA leader.

Judge O’Connell, a long-time board member of WLALA, created the Power Lunch Program to provide civic education, judicial mentorship, and exposure to the judicial branch to local high school students. As part of the Power Lunch Program, students visit courthouses to have lunch with judges, lawyers, courtroom staff, and members of law enforcement.

The recipient of the Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell Scholarship will receive up to $5,000 and be announced publicly at the WLALA Installation Dinner in September, which recipients are required to attend.

To be eligible, an applicant must meet the following requirements:
  • Be a woman high school senior;
  • Interested in the field of law or in public service;
  • Inspired to pursue this career choice by:
  1. the WLALA Foundation’s Power Lunch Program;
  2. the WLALA organization; or
  3. a WLALA leader.

To apply, please submit all of the following information/materials:

  • Your contact information (name, email address, and phone number);
  • A personal statement addressing where you have applied to college and/or where you have been accepted into college, your career goals, and how you were inspired to pursue this career by the WLALA Foundation’s Power Lunch Program, the WLALA organization, or a WLALA leader. Your personal statement must be typed, double-spaced, and a maximum of three pages;
  • Your high school transcript, including grades for fall semester 2021; and
  • A minimum of one letter of recommendation and a maximum of three letters of recommendation.

Email your completed application to: info@wlala.org (please include “2022 Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell Scholarship Application” in the email subject line) or mail your completed application to Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, Attn: 2022 Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell Scholarship Application, 634 South Spring Street, Suite 617, Los Angeles, CA 90014.

All applications must be emailed or postmarked no later than April 30, 2022.

Questions about the WLALA Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell Scholarship should be directed to Kay Burt at info@wlala.org.
RBG Equality Scholarships 
“[I]f you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself… something to make life a little better for people less fortunate than you." - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The WLALA Foundation is pleased to offer 2022 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Equality Scholarships, tuition scholarships to law students who plan to follow in the footsteps of Justice Ginsburg by fighting for social justice, equality and inclusion, and have a demonstrated commitment to issues affecting women, children, minorities, or other historically marginalized groups.

As it did last year, the WLALA Foundation will award one-time tuition scholarships of a minimum of $5,000 for the 2022-2023 academic year to law students whose prior and current activities, and future plans demonstrate a commitment to issues affecting women, children, racial minorities, or other historically marginalized groups. The scholarships will be announced publicly at the WLALA Installation Dinner in September 2022, which recipients are required to attend.

To be eligible, students must meet the following requirements:

  • Be currently enrolled in an accredited law school, and plan to be so enrolled in the 2022-2023 academic year;
  • Upon graduation from law school, plan to practice law in Los Angeles County or engage in legal work that affects Los Angeles County; and
  • Be in the top fifty percent of their class.
Save the Children: Ukraine
Save the Children ("STC") is a global nonprofit that delivers essential humanitarian aid. WLALA is raising awareness about this organization because your donation will help to improve the lives of those who have been devastated by war. STC is helping children caught in the conflict across Ukraine, Poland, and Romania, with a target of reaching 3.5 million vulnerable children and their families.
 
Specifically, STC is:
  • Distributing warm clothes and blankets
  • Providing funds to help families pay for food, rent, and medicines
  • Offering mental health and psychosocial support to children whose lives have been impacted by displacement, family separation, and trauma
  • Supporting children’s learning through high-quality, inclusive education
  • Addressing health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, and shelter needs as part of the first phase of the response

When you donate, 85% of every dollar goes to STC's mission. Learn more about STC's financial transparency here.
Applications Open for Georgetown's Racial Equity Teaching Fellowship
Georgetown University Law Center’s newest Clinic, the Racial Equity in Education Law & Policy Clinic (the REEL Policy Clinic) is hiring a lawyer to serve as a Clinical Teaching Fellow and Supervising Attorney for a two-year term, beginning in fall of 2022. This fellowship offers an opportunity to work on timely issues of racial justice and education law.

Fellows assume substantial responsibility for projects at an early stage of their careers and generally play a more important role in the decision-making process than do their contemporaries in other types of law practice. They also have an opportunity to work on a variety of client matters, at different stages of development, so they gain a broader understanding of how laws and public policies are developed and how the legislative process works. Fellows work closely with a broad range of clients, meeting others who are involved in public interest law and seeing how the entities function. For those with an interest in clinical teaching, Fellows get first-hand experience in clinical supervision, and also participate in, and often co-teach, seminars.
Congratulations to Hon. Tiana Murillo, who was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on March 14, 2022, to serve as a Judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court!
WLALA Board Member Hon. Holly Fujie was elected Co-Chair of the MultiCultural Bar Alliance, a coalition of more than 20 diverse minority bar associations in Southern California. Together with her co-chair Terri Macellaro, Judge Fujie will lead a coalition dedicated to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and to stand up for and speak out against racial injustice of any kind.
Michele Anderson was honored by Long Beach Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at its Women's History Program. She has been a Deputy City Attorney with the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office since 1991 and is a lifetime member of and serves on the boards of the John M. Langston Bar Association, Black Women Lawyers of Los Angeles, Inc. (BWL), and the California Association of Black Lawyers (CABL). She also serves on the executive boards of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. She is the Past Chair of the LACBA Criminal Justice Section and has served as the program director of the Los Angeles criminal Inns of Court. Through her work with these various bar and other organizations, Ms. Anderson has organized successful events and MCLE lectures about voter registration, civil rights, constitutional rights, polling places, and staying engaged in local, state, and national elections. She has also provided forums on a variety of issues affecting minority underserved communities.
WLALA's Immediate Past President Jessica Kronstadt and WLALA Board Member Indira J. Cameron-Banks were recognized by the Los Angeles County Bar Association (LACBA) as this year's Women's History Month Honorees.
WLALA Board Member Laura Jane Kessner was featured by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office ("LADA") for Women's History Month. Laura Jane is the Director of Central Operations for the LADA and has been a prosecutor in that office for over 26 years.
WLALA Board Member Karen Luong and two others debuted a legal practice group dedicated to federally controlled psychedelics at Husch Blackwell LLP, a WLALA Partner Sponsor. Consisting of an all-female diverse team of women, her practice group is one of the first instances of a national U.S. law firm creating a devoted practice to advise scientists, clinicians, and product designers exploring potential health benefits of psychedelic substances.
On May 1, 2022, the Jewish Free Loan Association (JFLA) will honor WLALA's Immediate Past President Jessica Kronstadt at its annual gala, which is entitled "Wonder Women: A Gala to Honor Leading Women of Los Angeles."
Welcome to Our New Members
Aracely Abarca
Amanda Alameddine
Farah Alhafez
Ariel Anson
Marcy Blattner 
Ashley Bobo
Liz Corbett
Courtney Dunn
Cynthia Floyd
Phallen Gaskin
Jacqueline Gidney
Danielle Hall
Binghan Han
Elizabeth Hernandez
Nadia Heshmati
Nadira Imam
Aadhya Ishani Sathi
Lilly Jones
Carolyn Khouzam
Hyeisoo Kim
Rosemary Koo
Molly Kramer
Ruth Kwan
Adriene Lynch
Belinda MaCauley
Mike Madokoro
Sawson Mansour
Megan Mars
Mayra Maturana
Genesis Mazariegos
Haley Perrin
Jessalyn Pinder
Sheila Qian
Christa Ramey
Candace Raney
Mya Roberts
Kimia Shariat
Melissa Shimizu
Chloe Von Helmolt
 Yan Zhao
Samantha Hernandez-Ortega
Samantha Hernandez-Ortega is an attorney who knows exactly where her clients are coming from. A personal injury attorney with the law firm AlderLaw, P.C., Samantha suffered a traumatic brain injury (“TBI”) her first semester of college. She has since dedicated her career to helping persons with TBIs get the justice they deserve. Her experience helps her understand the nature of the symptoms of TBIs and also how impactful those symptoms can be on a TBI patient and their loved ones.

Samantha’s career path was not a given. She grew up in Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, an impoverished community where only about a third of the students in her high school graduated. Neither of her parents graduated high school and she did not know any attorneys, let alone professionals, when growing up. She credits Marcia Clark with inspiring her to become an attorney; after watching her on television prosecuting O.J. Simpson as a child, Samantha knew she wanted to go to law school and become a prosecutor. Along the way, she discovered her calling in personal injury work and has never looked back. Her dream is to help as many injured victims as possible, and considers her work a form of prosecution and seeking justice.

She is very proud of the community she was raised in and is committed to doing outreach to give back both to her high school and college. Samantha is a Trustee on the Board of the Whittier Bar Association and joined the Board of WLALA because she wanted to become more involved in the greater Los Angeles legal community. As WLALA’s co-chair of the Law Student Mentoring Committee, she hopes to ensure that future generations of women lawyers are diverse. Welcome Samantha!
CWL Annual Conference
Critical Race Theory: What It Is, What It Isn't, and What Attorneys Need to Know
LA Law Day
Join the LA City Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department (LA Civil Rights) for LA Law Day, a virtual conference for students and youth interested in legal careers on April 9, 2022, at 9:00 a.m.!

LA Law Day is one of the Equity and Empowerment Division’s initiatives to support the upward mobility of students and to celebrate Diversity Month, April. While some students come from generations of lawyers, others are left to decide when and where to apply or work without the privilege of generational or institutional knowledge. This event will be a first step toward making a legal education and career more accessible to the diverse population of students in our community.
Fearless Female Founders Attack Microaggressions
What Are They and How Can We Eliminate Them in the Practice of Law?
In 2022, it is incumbent on law firms not only to develop meaningful policies and procedures to attack microaggressions but also train staff and attorneys how to recognize microaggressions and to avoid being complicit when witnessing one take place. In our annual Fearless Female Founders panel, our panelists will discuss what they are doing in the context of owning, operating, and managing their small law firms to change this.

Topics:

  • What are microaggressions and how might women lawyers experience them in the practice of law?
  • How does ignorance of privilege and intersectionality exacerbate microaggressions and contribute to negative work environments for women of color?
  • How to build and manage relationships with clients, referral sources, and other third parties external to the firm, devoid of microaggressions. 
  • How to train staff and attorneys in a law firm to recognize and stop microaggressions so as to create a more inclusive culture in law firms, generally.

This event is presented by the Solo and Small Firm Section and Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Barristers Club of the Bar Association of San Francisco.
Use code COSPONSOR2021 when registering.
Judicial Mentor Program Inclusivity Workshop
The Los Angeles County Superior Court ("LASC") is excited to announce its Spring 2022 Judicial Mentor Program Workshop, which will be an experience like no other. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to hear from LASC Presiding Judge Eric Taylor regarding LASC’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as Andy Imparato, Executive Director of Disability Rights California and a pioneer in the area of disability rights and inclusion.

Participants will learn about diverse paths to becoming a judge and how the appointment process works. During breakout sessions with sitting judges, participants will have the opportunity to connect with judges in small groups during which they can have more intimate discussion and where they may pose any outstanding questions they may have. You do not want to miss this event. All currently licensed attorneys are welcome!

The workshop will be held on April 20, 2022 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Your presence is important. Please contact JudicialMentors@LACourt.org to arrange for any appropriate accommodations.
Preventing Lawyer Harassment: California's New Regulatory Approach - Rule 8.4.1
WLALA is proud to co-sponsor the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-discrimination Law (BCCE)'s virtual webinar on April 22, 2022, from 9am to 11am that will cover new California Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4.1, which takes a stricter approach to disciplining attorneys for discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in both law practice operations and matters of legal representation. In a significant departure from the past, the new Rule grants the State Bar the power to investigate and to prosecute discrimination and harassment claims and further makes clear that failure to advocate corrective action also violates the Rule. This program is especially important for those who manage law firms and law departments.  The program also will discuss UK and French approaches to prohibiting bias in the legal profession. 

Speakers will include California legal ethics expert Mark Tuft, California employment lawyer/investigator Vida Thomas, UK discrimination lawyer Georgina Calvert-Lee, and French public interest lawyer Laura Bourgeois. The program will be moderated by California employment lawyer Carolina Bravo-Karimi

Lawyers can receive 2 hours of California CLE credit by attending the program, which will count toward either the ethics requirement or the elimination of bias requirement.

WLALA members receive a reduced registration fee, $80 instead of $100.
SCCLA Clerkship Panel Series: U.S. Supreme Court
LA Uprising, 1992 until Now
JALBCA's Monthly Breast Cancer Support Group
Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert ("JALBCA") is pleased to announce that it has established a Support Group for legal professionals and their loved ones who have been touched by breast cancer. The group will meet by Zoom from 6-7 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month. Upcoming Support Group meetings will be on April 7, 2022, May 5, 2022, and June 2, 2022.

Please join us to share your experiences and feelings in an inclusive and confidential environment with JALBCA members and other legal professionals and their loved ones who recently have been diagnosed with breast cancer and/or are breast cancer survivors and/or have otherwise been touched by breast cancer.
LA City Attorney Candidate Debate
Call for Program Submissions: ABA's Professional Success Summit
This year, WLALA Racial Justice & Equality Advisory Council member Kim Jaimez will be co-chairing the American Bar Association's ("ABA's") Section of Litigation, Professional Success Summit, which is a two-day conference aimed at diverse attorneys to provide litigation training, networking, and business development skills. It is scheduled for October 26-28, 2022 at the Omni Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. 
 
Call for Submissions: The ABA is soliciting program proposals by April 8, 2022. Please consider submitting a program proposal if you are interested in speaking! Contact Kim with any questions.
Local Bar Calendar
Career Center
Did you know that your WLALA membership allows you to access our exclusive Career Center? The Career Center has employment opportunities ranging from non-profit organizations to government employers to law firms.
WLALA Webinar Recordings
WLALA webinars have been recorded and are available for purchase. Following your purchase, access to the recording will be sent via email. If MCLE credit applies, the materials will be sent after we receive confirmation that the video has been viewed.
iDepo will make a donation to WLALA if you schedule a court reporting or videotaped deposition with them as follows:

  • $20 donation to WLALA for each court reporting services of at least 100 pages per day.
  • $50 donation to WLALA for each videotaped deposition with at least 100 pages per day.

When scheduling, please email or call and mention code "WLALA." 
Email Calendar@iDepoReporters.com or call 323-393-3768. 

iDepo will send donations to WLALA within 90 days after receipt of payment of invoices.
The Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles ("WLALA") promotes the full participation in the legal profession of women lawyers and judges from diverse perspectives and racial and ethnic backgrounds, maintains the integrity of our legal system by advocating principles of fairness and equality, and improves the status of women by supporting their exercise of equal rights, equal representation, and reproductive choice.
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