Awards

The 2025 NAPABA Awards: Celebrating Excellence in the Mile High City

 

NAPABA proudly honors outstanding attorneys and innovative organizations who have made exceptional contributions to the legal profession and the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community within the past year. These annual awards recognize excellence, impact, and leadership across all stages of the profession and celebrate those who are advancing NAPABA’s mission and values in their work. Be part of the celebration, November 6-8, at the NAPABA Convention as we honor these distinguished leaders in Denver.

 

New in 2025: To create more meaningful moments of celebration and improve the overall attendee experience, award presentations will now take place throughout the NAPABA Convention— NAPABA Best Under 40 Awards Reception (Thursday), Welcome Reception (Thursday), President's and Trailblazer Award Reception (Friday) and luncheon plenaries (Friday and Saturday). This exciting change enables us to shine a brighter spotlight on each honoree and their exceptional achievements, while considerably shortening the Gala program. Once all honorees are announced, we will share when each award will be presented in the Convention schedule so attendees can join us in recognizing their achievements.

 

Previous NAPABA award recipients include Vice President  Kamala Harris, U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono, Rear Admiral A.B. Cruz III (ret. USN), former Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal, Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of Medtronic Ivan Fong, former Mayor of San Francisco Edwin Mah Lee (posthumous), Ambassador Gary Locke, Ambassador Katherine Tai, civil rights attorney Dale Minami, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, Judge Amul Thapar, President of Queens College Frank Wu, and activist and author Helen Zia to name a few.