Charles Jung

 Candidate for Vice President for
 Programs and Operations

  Endorse Candidate

Candidate Statement

I love NAPABA and our affiliate bars because we offer community, connection, and a sense of home for APA attorneys. NAPABA’s mission statement encapsulates the values that I’m proud we stand for as lawyers—we foster professional development, we promote justice, equity, and opportunity, and we serve as a voice for our community. I seek to continue serving as NAPABA VP for Programs and Operations. My focus in this role is advancing NAPABA attorneys professionally and amplifying our voice.

Professional Development for NAPABA Attorneys

As your VP for Programs & Operations, I’ve taken to heart the lessons of the NAPABA-Yale Law School Portrait Project. Disproportionately, many APA attorneys stall out on the path to the top ranks of their organizations. That’s why as Chair of the Leadership Task Force, I focused on creating the NAPABA Leadership Advancement Program (LAP). LAP is a yearlong program bringing together a cohort of law firm attorneys and in-house counsel. It commences with a weekend of team-building and leadership exercises targeting specific challenges faced by APA attorneys. Through a year of collaboration, LAP will create an environment where law firm attorneys and IHC can form authentic, mutually-supportive relationships. Fostering long-term relationships is a crucial way NAPABA’s programs can add value to our members.

Listening to feedback from affiliates around the country, I’ve created programs that share best practices among all of our 80+ affiliates. I was proud to help create the Affiliate Best Practices Webinar Series. These webinars have shared best practices for board governance, public affairs advocacy, and judicial nominations. In my prior role as Solo & Small Firm Network Co-chair and member, I launched the popular SSF Network Webinar Series with similar goals.

Serving as a Voice for the Community

We are a nation of immigrants. I believe this identity sets us apart and makes us stronger. But American principles are not self-executing, so I’m very proud of our collective work to serve as a voice for the community. This year, I was happy to work with APA bar leaders to organize California’s 30 NAPABA affiliates into a statewide advocacy organization, the California Asian Pacific American Bar Association (Cal-APABA). In March, Cal-APABA lobbied for increased state funding to prepare for the 2020 Census, hate crimes tracking, and API judicial appointments. Thankfully, we’ve experienced some important and substantial successes. Cal-APABA also helps lead a coalition of statewide affinity bars to advance diversity and inclusion. I modeled Cal-APABA’s Lobby Day after NAPABA’s successful national Lobby Day, and modeled the statewide diversity coalition after NAPABA’s national Coalition of Bar Associations of Color. I hope this will be a useful template other affiliates can use to mobilize APA attorneys in their jurisdictions.

It’s fair to say that today some principles that we may have taken for granted in the past are under heavy challenge. But tolerance, justice, and diversity are core NAPABA values, so I’m proud that NAPABA has stood up against hatred. This year, in the wake of the bigotry and violence at Charlottesville, I was pleased to work with the NAPABA Civil Rights Committee to pass a resolution condemning and rejecting white nationalism, white supremacy, the so-called Alt-Right, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups.

I’ve also worked with the NAPABA Pro Bono Committee to reaffirm our commitment to voter protection efforts. Together, we created a non-partisan, nationwide program to protect, register, and turnout APA voters. We worked with APIAVote to develop the program, and we are collaborating with NAPABA’s national network to increase the APA community’s voice.

But the work is not complete. Like other national bars, NAPABA faces challenges ahead. Consistent with our strategic plan, our organization should concentrate on its core mission, always look to improve its efficiency, and favor quality over quantity in its programs. That’s why I’ve also focused this term on improving NAPABA’s long-term fiscal discipline and improving our operations. Together with the Investment Committee, I’ve advanced measures to improve our budgeting process and strengthen our reserves. Chairing the Programs Task Force, we’ve embarked on a broad evaluation of NAPABA’s programs, with the aim of delivering higher quality, more focused programming.

These efforts continue, but I am excited about NAPABA’s future. I look forward to working with you to further improve the programs we deliver to our members and increase the contributions we make to our community. I would be honored to have your support.

Candidate Bio

Charles Jung serves as NAPABA’s VP for Programs & Operations. He is passionate about community mobilization and public policy. His day job is as a trial lawyer at Nassiri & Jung LLP, where he both defends wage and hour/employment cases and represents professionals, executives, and founders in their workplace disputes. Charles is a frequent commentator in the legal press on the topics of class actions, arbitration, and employment law. He graduated with Distinction from Stanford Law School, where he was an Articles Editor for the Stanford Law Review. He earned his B.A. from Duke University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He earned his Master’s from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Kennedy Fellow. His honors and awards include being named a Top 100 Northern California Attorney every year since 2013 and inclusion in the list of Super Lawyers® or Rising Stars by Northern California Super Lawyers every year since 2009. Charles is Peer Review Rated AV Preeminent® (5.0 out of 5.0) by Martindale-Hubbell® in Litigation, Labor and Employment, and Class Actions. He previously served NAPABA as an At-Large Board Member, Programs Task Force chair, Leadership Task Force Chair, and committee co-chair. In addition, he serves as President of Cal-APABA, President-elect of AABA Greater Bay Area, a director of the Bar Association of San Francisco, an IAKL Regional Governor, and an Elections Commissioner for the City and County of San Francisco.

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