507. Pay Equality and Advancement for Asian Americans in The
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Pay Equality and Advancement for Asian Americans in the Workplace and the Legal Profession National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Convention Washington, D.C. November 4, 2017, 10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. TABLE OF CONTENTS Timed Agenda 2 Speaker Biographies 3 Description of Panel and Written Materials 4 Additional Resources 5 U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Diversity in High Tech (May 2016) 6 Vault Career Intelligence/Minority Corporate Counsel Association, 56 Law Firm Diversity Survey Report (December 2016) Diversity Lab, 30 Law Firms Pilot Version of Rooney Rule to Boost Diversity in Leadership Ranks (June 7, 2017) 86 Pay Equality and Advancement - 1 TIMED AGENDA 1. Introduction (5 minutes) 2. Introduction of Panelists (10 minutes) 3. Legal Protections and Enforcement Efforts to Promote Equal Pay (10 minutes) 4. Barriers to Advancement (15 minutes) a. Challenges facing Asian American lawyers and executives in advancing to senior levels in organizations b. Practical insights on how compensation is set 5. Strategies to Advance Pay Equality (20 minutes) a. How Asian Americans can ensure they are being paid fairly. b. Strategies and opportunities to help Asian American attorneys advance in the profession. 6. Questions from the audience (15 minutes) Pay Equality and Advancement - 2 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES JULIAN HA Julian Ha is a Partner based in the Washington, D.C. office and is a key member of Heidrick & Struggles’s General Counsel Practice. For over a decade, he has assisted clients in recruiting numerous General Counsels and other senior legal executives across a wide range of industries. As a former legal practitioner, Julian brings a unique and global perspective to legal searches. Julian practiced corporate law in New York, Washington, D.C., London, Singapore and Shanghai. As an attorney with Paul Weiss, Baker & McKenzie and Linklaters, he advised multinational corporations on their IPOs, private equity investments and cross- border M&A transactions. Julian has extensive Boardroom governance experience, having served on the board of China Recycling Energy Corporation (CREG), a NASDAQ-listed cleantech company where he chaired CREG’s Compensation Committee and Propulsys, a privately-held, precision manufacturing company with operations in the US, Germany and China. Julian is currently a board member of the Public Affairs Council and the Capital Area Chapter of The National Association of Corporate Directors. Julian received his B.A. from Cornell University, his Masters degrees from the London School of Economics and Harvard University and his J.D. from the New York University School of Law. He attained a Certificate in Corporate Finance from The London Business School and holds a NACD Certificate of Director Education. Julian is a member of the Bar of the State of New York. JEAN LEE Jean Lee is the President and CEO of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), which is a national organization focused on hiring, promoting and retaining women and diverse attorneys by providing cutting-edge research, best practices and training. Prior to joining MCCA, Ms. Lee was the Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at JP Morgan Chase & Co. where she worked on consumer litigation and regulatory matters. Prior to JP Morgan Chase & Co., Ms. Lee was an associate with Milberg LLP. At Milberg, she practiced in the areas of securities class action and False Claims Act litigation. Prior to Milberg, Ms. Lee also served as the law clerk to the Honorable John J. Hughes, United States Magistrate Judge (retired), in the District of New Jersey. She graduated from New York University with a B.A. degree in Politics and Psychology and a M.S.W. in Social Work. Ms. Lee received her J.D. degree from Rutgers School of Law, where she was a Senior Editor of the Rutgers Law Record. Ms. Lee served on AABANY’s Board of Directors from 2010 to 2016 and as its President in 2012. In 2014, the Council of Urban Professionals recognized Ms. Lee as a Catalyst: Change Agent | Law and in 2015, she was recognized as a Trailblazer by the Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York. JENNY YANG Jenny Yang served as Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from September 1, 2014 to January 22, 2017. Ms. Yang joined the Commission in March 2013, and is serving out a term that ends this year. The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, sex, and other protected classes. She was the first Asian American to serve as chair of the EEOC in its 50-year history. Throughout her career in the private, government, and nonprofit sectors, Ms. Yang has worked to ensure fairness and equal opportunity in the workplace. Ms. Yang was a partner of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and served as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section. Ms. Yang Pay Equality and Advancement - 3 received her B.A. from Cornell University in Government. She received her J.D. from New York University School of Law. ARLENE YANG, Moderator Arlene Yang is Of Counsel at Brown Law Group, a law firm in San Diego, California that specializes in employment and business litigation. She provides advice and defends companies in litigation– ranging from multi-national corporations to local businesses. Ms. Yang has practiced law in government and private sector settings, including at the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Ms. Yang is a co- chair of the NAPABA Labor and Employment Committee and past-president of the Pan Asian Lawyers of San Diego. Ms. Yang is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University School of Law. DESCRIPTION OF PANEL AND WRITTEN MATERIALS Advancing pay equality and workplace opportunities for Asian Americans are more important than ever. Even in industries where Asian Americans are well represented such as the tech sector, studies have demonstrated a wage gap for Asian workers. Pay imbalances only grow when hidden barriers impede the advancement of Asian Americans to the executive suite. As noted in the findings of the recent “Portrait Project: A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law,” while Asian Americans have been the largest minority group in major law firms for almost 20 years, they have the highest attrition rates and the lowest ratio of partners to associates among all groups. Panelists will explore legal protections and enforcement efforts to promote equal pay, challenges facing Asian American lawyers and executives in advancing to senior levels in organizations, and strategies to advance pay equality. In addition to exploring barriers to advancement, panelists will provide practical insights on issues such as how compensation is set, how Asian Americans can ensure they are being paid fairly, and strategies and opportunities to help Asian American attorneys advance in the profession. Since 1966, federal law has required employers with 100 more employees (and many federal contractors with 50 or more employees) to file the Employer Information Report EEO-1. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 2016 report, Diversity in High Tech, analyzed EEO-1 data for the high-tech sector. Among other findings was a recognition of distinct drops in the percentage of Asian Americans in professional jobs (50%) as compared to the percentage of Asian Americans in management (36%). The Vault Career Intelligence/Minority Corporate Counsel Association, Law Firm Diversity Survey Report detailed similar difficulties in advancement by Asian Americans in the nation’s largest law firms, demonstrating for example, that although Asians are the largest group of non- white attorneys, they are less likely to become partners or serve on management-level committees within the firm than black or Latino lawyers. One positive step is the adoption of the “Mansfield Rule” by some of the county’s largest law firms to assure that at least 30 percent of the candidates considered for leadership positions, promotions, and lateral positions are women and attorneys of color. Pay Equality and Advancement - 4 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES American Bar Association, From Visible Invisibility to Visibly Successful: Success Strategies for Law Firms and Women of Color in Law Firms (2008), available at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/women/woc/VisiblySuccessful.authchec kdam.pdf. This report identifies different strategies law firms and individual attorneys can use to create environments in which women of color can thrive. Eric Chung, Samuel Dong, Xionan April Hu, Christine Kwon, Goodwin Liu, A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law (2017), available at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ 532b50ebe4b08e1b0a177e84/t/597245eedb29d621a8f005aa/1500661239395/170716_PortraitPr oject_SinglePages.pdf. This study, which was conducted by National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and Yale Law School, provides a detailed view of Asian Americans in the law, their distribution across practice settings, and the challenges they face in advancement. Buck Gee, Janet Wong, Ascend Pan-Asian Leaders, Lost in Aggregation: Asian Reflection in the Glass Ceiling (2016), available at https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ascendleadership.site- ym.com/resource/resmgr/research/lostinaggregation-paper.pdf. This study analyzes EEOC workplace data to demonstrate that Asian American men and Asian American women in the professional workforce reach executive levels at a lower rate than all other races. National Conference of State Legislatures, State Equal Pay Laws (2016), available at http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/equal-pay-laws.aspx. This report summarizes state equal pay statutes. Pay Equality and Advancement - 5 DIVERSITY IN HIGH TECH U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission May 2016 Pay Equality and Advancement - 6 Pay Equality and Advancement - 7 DIVERSITY IN HIGH TECH Executive Summary The high tech sector has become a major source of economic growth fueling the U.S.