Minami Tamaki LLP Associate Lisa P. Mak begins her term in January 2022 as President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (“AABA”), one of the largest Asian American bar associations in the nation and one of the largest minority bar associations in California.
Lisa will be the first attorney from Minami Tamaki LLP to serve as President of AABA. She served as Vice President and President-elect this year, after serving as Treasurer in 2020 and as Secretary in 2019.
The AABA 46th Annual Gala is scheduled for March 30, 2022, at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero. Lisa chose “Speak Up, Rise Up” as the gala theme when reflecting on the anti-API hate incidents in the past few years and how our community and allies spoke up, fought back, and elevated the crisis into a mainstream issue. At the gala and throughout her term, Lisa will aspire to honor AABA’s history of speaking up for our community and to continue building that momentum while elevating our members in the legal profession and keeping our voice at the table.
Lisa continues Minami Tamaki’s tradition of leadership in bar associations. Partner Sean Tamura-Sato and Associate Claire Choo are former AABA board members. Senior Counsel Dale Minami is a co-founder of AABA and of the Asian Pacific Bar of California. Partner Suhi Koizumi is a past president of the Korean American Bar Association of Northern California. Associate Seema Bhatt serves on the board of the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California. Other firm attorneys have served in numerous positions with various bar associations and legal organizations.
A deep commitment to our communities and diversity issues guides Lisa’s service. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach and for the California Asian Pacific American Bar Association. She is actively involved in the California Employment Lawyers Association (“CELA”) and serves on the Board of CELA’s foundation. Lisa is also a past board member of the Bar Association of San Francisco.
Lisa is an Associate in Minami Tamaki’s Consumer and Employee Rights Group. Her practice includes employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, contract claims, and labor code violations. She is experienced in litigation, from pre-litigation negotiations to trials and appeals. She also advises employees on employment contracts and severance agreements. She writes frequently about social justice and workplace equality issues, and her work has been published in Plaintiff Magazine and on the CELA Voice blog.
Lisa has served as trial counsel in multiple trials involving a wide variety of employment disputes in state and federal court. In 2016, she was co-lead counsel on a five-week jury trial which resulted in a $3.5 million total verdict for four female officers at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. The verdict was listed in the LexisNexis “Top 10 Employment Verdicts” for 2016 and was recognized by Leaders in the Law in its “Northern California’s Leading Lawyers” 2017 publication.
She was selected by Best Lawyers: Ones To Watch for its 2022 list and as a Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2015-2021, an honor awarded to no more than 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state. In 2017, Lisa was honored with the Legal Advocate Award from the Center for Workers’ Rights and with a civil rights award from the Equal Justice Society.
Lisa graduated from UC San Diego summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and received her law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law.