Confidence as a young Asian American woman

Working with the Japanese company where I was in-house counsel had been a great experience because I was a young Asian woman, but I was general counsel to one of the Hawaii's top 50 companies. And I was traveling around the world and being given primary responsibility on multimillion-dollar deals.

And so I and it's really amazing because I went from being an associate at the law firm I was at to being general counsel, then becoming the client representative. So all of a sudden the partners that used to assign me work were now my client, and they're like, “Oh, Sabrina, you know, Sabrina, can we do this? Can we do?”

And I was assigning work to major law firms throughout the world, and I was overseeing the work of major law firms, and I was overseeing these multimillion-dollar deals. So I learned a lot about law. I learned a lot about negotiation. And it gave me a lot of confidence as a young Asian American woman that I could do this.

And so when I became a judge, you know, I had all these seen, you know, older male judges, lawyers appearing in front of me. But I was not intimidated at all because I felt like I am just as able, if not more able to research and know what the applicable law is. And you're not going to be able to intimidate me, you know. So I think it um I think that experiences, my experiences really gave me confidence and helped me.

Date: July 14, 2022
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Lana Kobayashi
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum; Japanese American Bar Association