Karin Wang

Karin Wang is the Vice President of Programs and Communications, overseeing Advancing Justice-LA’s programs, pro bono, and communications work. Wang has been active in local, state, and national organizations that seek to improve the legal system for immigrants and low-income communities. She has served as a past president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles County; past board member of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association; former chair of the State Bar's Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services; past board member of OneJustice; and past co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) Pro Bono & Community Service Committee. She has also served on the State Bar's Council on Access & Fairness. In addition, Wang has been very involved in the struggle for marriage equality in California. She was a founding steering committee member of API Equality-LA, leading the coalition’s media efforts against Proposition 8 in 2008 and also helping to file several amicus briefs in the California Supreme Court in support of marriage equality, including one brief on behalf of 63 Asian American organizations. Before assuming her current role, Wang directed Advancing Justice-LA’s immigrant rights project and helped file a landmark civil rights complaint against Los Angeles County on behalf of limited-English-proficient welfare recipients, leading to major reforms to the department’s services to immigrants and payment of $1.7 million in back benefits. Wang also ran the Los Angeles field office of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, enforcing federal civil rights laws across the Southwest. After law school, she was a litigation associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco. For her activism and leadership, Wang has received the "Asian American Alumni of the Year" award from the University of Illinois and the Dale Minami Boalt Alumni Award, as well as honors from API Equality-LA, KCET (Los Angeles), Lambda Legal, the Taiwanese American Citizens League/Taiwanese American Professionals, and former California Assemblymember Mike Eng. She also was named by NAPABA as one of its "Best Lawyers Under 40." Wang graduated from the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, where she was the editor-in-chief of the Asian American Law Journal, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.