Last year's conference, titled "FOCUS: Rethinking the Role of the Asian American Lawyer," was an incredible success. We achieved an unprecedented level of attendance with over two hundred students from law schools across the country, including Boston College, Boston University, Columbia, Georgetown, George Washington, Michigan, NYU, Penn State, Penn, Rutgers, Stanford, Seton Hall, Temple, UNC, UVA, Villanova, and Widener. Our panel topics covered the well-trod legal career paths by discussing issues faced by Asian American lawyers in the law firm setting, as well as the less familiar paths such as legal academia and human rights advocacy in North Korea and Tibet.

This year, we plan to build on last year's accomplishments by broadening our scope to reflect the growing influence of East Asia and the complicated legal and economic issues that result from globally expanding legal practices. The 7th annual Mid-Atlantic APALSA Conference, titled "Emerging Asia: Shedding New Light on the Legal Landscape," will include panel topics such as practicing in Asia as an American lawyer, the legal and economic landscape of Hong Kong post-reunification, a debate about how copyright and trademark laws should operate and be enforced globally, and how media coverage of the 2008 Olympics has shaped Beijing's "coming-out" from a legal perspective.

With every passing year, we see the Asian-American community expanding in number and into all fields of the legal profession, and it is our privilege to provide this conference as a forum for Asian American law students and legal professionals to network and explore new intellectual and professional terrain together. Our goal this and every year is to inspire activism in our careers and our communities. We've chosen speakers to inspire young Asian American lawyers to take the helm and lead in their own way, whether through academia, public service, business or the judiciary, and panel topics that can serve as focal points for this important and continuous conversation.

The conference will be held at the University of Pennsylvania Law School's Levy Conference Center on Saturday, February 2, 2008, from 11 o'clock am to 6 o'clock pm, followed by an employer reception for first- and second-year law students and a dinner banquet. We hope that many of you will join us in taking this opportunity to reach out to Asian American law students from across the nation and solidify the connection that brings us together every year: a commitment to supporting others and challenging ourselves to break barriers.

Past Conferences

2007 Conference
2006 Conference