PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

Asian Pacific American Bar Association

The Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington, D.C. Area (APABA) is the "parent" organization of AEF. Its membership includes over 300 lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students. APABA works to promote legal issues of interest to the Asian Pacific American community both locally and nationally and is one of the largest Asian Pacific American bar associations in the country and one of the largest minority bar groups in Washington, D.C. APABA works to service its members through its various committees, which include the Pro Bono Committee, Professional Development Committee, Community Outreach Committee, Endorsements Committee, Law Students Committee, Newsletter Committee, Membership Committee.

As the charitable wing of APABA, both AEF and APABA board members work closely throughout the year. AEF often solicits APABA members as volunteers for many of its programs, such as the Mock Interview and Mentoring Programs. The generosity of the APABA attorneys has undoubtedly contributed to the success of these AEF programs.

For more information on APABA, please visit their website at www.apaba-dc.org

Endowment Foundations and Organizations

The Anheuser-Busch corporation underwrites AEF's most prestigious summer fellowship -- the Anheuser-Busch Norman Y. Mineta Fellowship. This grant is awarded each year to the highest qualified summer fellowship applicant who embodies the exceptional standards of community service and public interest set by Norman Y. Mineta, the longest serving U.S. Secretary of Transportation in history, and former Secretary of Commerce.

Access to Justice Partnership

The Access to Justice Partnership (AJP) is a partnership of APA community-based organizations and government agencies created in January 1999 in order to improve the access of APAs to the criminal justice system. AJP is a program of Asian American LEAD and is supported by a generous grant from Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice.

AJP has two areas of focus: APA merchants and at-risk youth. Through its community organizations and government liaisons, AJP is working towards improving the relationship between the APAs and the D.C government agencies via multicultural awareness classes for the Metropolitan Police Department, community building projects and leadership training for local APA groups, and a variety of informational forums.AEF is proud to be one of the AJP partners, and is working in conjunction with APABA and other local APA organizations to help address the issues of the APA merchants and open the channels of communication and understanding between the merchants and the D.C. government agencies.

Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center

The Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center (APALRC) is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the legal and civil rights of Asian Americans in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan community through direct services, education, and advocacy. Through its innovative programs and strategic partnerships, the APALRC's main goals are two-fold: (1) to address the individual legal needs of low-income and limited-English proficient Asian Americans, and (2) to advocate for broad-based systemic change on civil rights issues impacting Asian Americans.

Originally formed as an all-volunteer organization in 1998, the APALRC grew out of a unique collaborative effort by students from D.C. area law schools and attorneys associated with the Asian Pacific American Bar Association (APABA) and the South Asian Bar Association (SABA). The APALRC was founded in response to the lack of linguistically and culturally appropriate legal services for the growing number of Asian Americans. Since its founding, the APALRC has flourished from an all-volunteer organization to an organization with 14 board members, 5 full-time and 1 part-time staff, 45 bilingual law student volunteers, and 34 trained legal interpreters.

For more information about the APALRC, please visit their website at www.apalrc.org. 

Fiscal Sponsorships

AEF has served in the past as fiscal sponsors for two groups: the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center (APALRC) and a consortium of law professors who collaborated on publishing an educational text on the law of internment and redress.

APALRC

AEF served as fiscal sponsor for the APALRC through 1999. For more information about APALRC, please see the entry above.

Consortium of Law Professors

AEF is also proud to have served as one of the fiscal sponsors for a consortium of APA legal scholars who compiled and edited law school course materials examining the legal, social, and historical issues arising out of this nation's internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. This ambitious Internment Law Project received a $95,000 grant from the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund and was coordinated locally by law professors Carol Izumi and Frank Wu. The book, entitled Race, Law, and Liberty: The Japanese American Internment and Redress -- A Critical Inquiry, was written primarily for use by law professors and students in law schools; however, it can also be used by students in graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses in Asian American studies, ethnic studies, African American studies, political science, sociology, and history. The book provides an in-depth inquiry into the interplay of American culture, government power, and civil liberties.