Events

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) will hold its annual Lunar New Year Gala and Justice in Action Awards Celebration on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. Following the success of our first-ever hybrid event last year at The Lighthouse, this year’s gala will be in person at Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers, NYC. The event emcees are Cindy Hsu, Anchor and Correspondent, CBS2 New York, and Sree Sreenivasan, CEO and Co-Founder of Digimentors.

Our 2023 Justice in Action Award recipients include Rep. Grace Meng, representing the 6th Congressional District of New York; Harsha G. Marti, Managing Director and General Counsel at Warburg Pincus; and CeFaan Kim, ABC News correspondent and WABC-TV reporter. The AALDEF Justice in Action Awards recognize exceptional individuals for their outstanding achievements and efforts to advance social justice. Past honorees include the late Congressman John Lewis, Preet Bharara, John G. Chou, Ivan K. Fong, David Henry Hwang, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Vanita Gupta, Neal Katyal, Sandra Leung, Don H. Liu, Thomas Kim, Mira Nair, George Takei, BD Wong, Kal Penn, Ronny Chieng, and Fareed Zakaria, to name a few.

We expect 500 leaders of the civil rights, legal, arts, and business communities from across the country to support AALDEF and to honor the Justice in Action award recipients. The evening will be filled with inspiring stories and remarks from our distinguished honorees. The evening’s festivities will begin at 6:00 pm ET with a cocktail reception and silent auction, followed by dinner and the Justice in Action awards presentation. Sponsorship information is available here. Individual tickets start at $2,000.

Founded in 1974, AALDEF is a New York-based national organization that promotes and protects the civil rights of Asian Americans. By combining litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, AALDEF works with Asian American communities across the country to secure human rights for all. We have won millions of dollars in back wages for low-wage immigrant workers; successfully challenged a Texas election law that restricted language access for Asian American voters, in violation of the Voting Rights Act; and conducted nonpartisan, multilingual exit polls of Asian American voters since 1988.

Proceeds from AALDEF’s annual banquet provide major funding for our programs in Asian American communities to combat anti-Asian violence, protect immigrants’ rights, promote housing and environmental justice, and expand voting rights and democracy.

For further information, email: events@aaldef.org.

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Special thanks to our 2023 Benefit Committee Co-Chairs (as of 3/6/23):

Sameer Advani
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP

Su Sun Bai
Morgan Stanley

Jasmine Ball
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Preet Bharara
WilmerHale

Javade Chaudhri
Jones Day

Heidi Chen & Brett Lauring

Kathy Hirata Chin
Crowell & Moring LLP

Ken Chin
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Kirby Chin
Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

Stan Chiueh
Friedman Kaplan Seiler Adelman & Robbins LLP

Margaret Cho

John Chou & Teresa Wallace

Christine Choy
Filmmaker

Connie Chung
Television Journalist

Ayano K. Creed
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP

A.B. Cruz III

Diana Eng
Blank Rome LLP

Lucy Fato
AIG

Melissa Fedornak
Jenner & Block LLP

Ivan Fong
Medtronic plc

Marilu Galvez
WABC

Gibson Dunn

Jessica Hagedorn
Writer

Suhana S. Han
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Benjamin C. Hsing
Venable LLP

Alice Hsu
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Marie Oh Huber

David Henry Hwang
Playwright/Screenwriter

John Hwang
Allen & Overy LLP

Zul Jamal
Moelis & Company

Kevin Jennings
Lambda Legal

Sue Jean Jhun
MetLife

Sheryl & Chip Kaye

Atif Khawaja
Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Richard K. Kim
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Thomas Kim & Erica Kuo

Harold Hongju Koh
Yale Law School

John W. Kuo

Mei Lin Kwan-Gett
Citigroup

Latham & Watkins LLP

Sandra Leung
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Loida Nicolas Lewis
Reginald F. Lewis Foundation

Don H. Liu
Target Corporation

Jiang Liu
Morrison Foerster

Raymond T. Mak
Epstein Becker Green

Aasif Mandvi

Sharon Rivenson Mark

Meera & Harsha G. Marti

MassMutual

Mari J. Matsuda
University of Hawaii School of Law

Dale Minami
Minami Tamaki LLP

Jeffrey Mok
Fish & Richardson P.C.

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Mira Nair
Filmmaker

Janai Nelson
Legal Defense Fund - LDF

New York Life Insurance Company

Minh Van Ngo
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

Paramount Global

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Perkins Coie LLP

Pfizer Inc.

Gimbels Pon & Sandra Leung

Proskauer Rose LLP

Stephanie Quappe
Fried Frank

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

Tawfiq S. Rangwala
Milbank LLP

Evita Reyes
AlixPartners

Ropes & Gray LLP

Lourdes Rosado
LatinoJustice PRLDEF

Meng Ru
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

Ayaz R. Shaikh
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

Shearman & Sterling LLP

Paul J. Shim
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Adam Siegel
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Brian W. Song
BakerHostetler

Sony Corporation of America

Sanya Sukduang
Cooley LLP

Renee Tajima-Peña
Filmmaker

George Takei

Bob Teoh
Foley Hoag LLP

The Asian American Foundation

Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation

Warburg Pincus LLC

BD Wong

Dino Wu
WilmerHale

Huiya Wu
Goodwin Procter LLP

Simone Wu
Choice Hotels International, Inc.

Sheryl WuDunn

Christopher Y. L. Yeung
Covington & Burling LLP

Dwight S. Yoo
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Andrew J. Yoon
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Phil Yu
Angry Asian Man

Fareed Zakaria
CNN

Yan Zhang
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Zoetis Inc.