CELEBRATIONS and SPOTLIGHT

Congratulations to James Ho, who received this year's Justice David Wellington Chew Award at the APIS retreat in Austin this past weekend.  The award honors individuals whose selfless contributions benefit the Asian-Pacific American legal community of Texas.  The award was named after Justice Chew, who currently presides as Chief Justice of the Eighth Court of Appeals.  APIS proudly honors Justice Chew for his pioneering achievements as one of the first Asian-Pacific Americans in the Texas Judiciary.  Each year's award winner epitomizes Justice Chew's passion and commitment towards helping and advancing Asian-Pacific interests in Texas and throughout the nation.

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Congratulations to Toni Nguyen, who has been confirmed as a new Minority Director of the State Bar of Texas.

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Kudos to Meyling Ly whose tireless commitment to DAYL won her recognition as Outstanding DAYL Director for exceptional service.  You can read DAYL Immediate Past President Dena DeNooyer Stroh's praises of Mey's efforts in the DICTA (which Mey happens to edit). 

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Thank you to DAABA's Service Committee, co-chairs Vincent Bhatti and Romit Cheema, and each of the DAABA members who reached out to the community by manning the telephones on DAABA's night for Legal Lines.

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Disaster Relief Donation

Following the earthquake in Haiti, DAABA’s Board considered making a donation on behalf of our organization to assist those in need.  Earthquakes then struck Chile and Turkey, at which time, DAABA decided to make its contribution to the Red Cross International Response Fund, which appeared to be the most appropriate designation to benefit disaster victims in each of these regions.  Appropriately, this is also the fund for which the Red Cross is now seeking donations to help the victims of this week’s earthquake in China.  DAABA hopes its contribution will help to ease the suffering in these areas, and we encourage individual DAABA members to consider making a similar contribution. 

Donations to the International Response Fund can be made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online at www.redcross.org.