Anna Mercado Clark, AABANY Fall Conference

Phillips Lytle LLP Partner Anna Mercado Clark to Serve on a Panel for AABANY Fall Conference, “Stronger Together: APA Women in the Legal Profession – Strategies to Support, Lead, and Advance”

New York, N.Y. – Phillips Lytle LLP Partner Anna Mercado Clark will serve on a panel for an event hosted by the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY), the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession (IILP) and the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) titled, “Stronger Together: APA Women in the Legal Profession – Strategies to Support, Lead, and Advance.” The conference will take place on Friday, September 25^th and Saturday, September 26^th.

Among the topics of discussion:

• Asian Americans are the most likely racial minority group to enter private practice upon their graduation from law school, and a majority of those new law firm associates are women.
• Success for Asian American women lawyers, however, brings with it challenges that many women may face, but that may be compounded by Asian cultural values, gender roles within the Asian American community, stereotypes about Asian American women, exoticism and fetishism about Asian American women and limited role models.
• What do you do when you look far younger than you are, or when being petite and pretty is a disadvantage?
• How do you handle the lawyers who make inappropriate advances without sacrificing professional networking opportunities?
• How do you deal with men who try to bully you?
• Can you make tough decisions without making lifelong enemies?
• Is it possible to balance family and community expectations with the career you are trying to build?
• How can Asian American women lawyers support each other beyond lip service?
• What structures can we build so that the power dynamics between and among sex and gender are diminished?
• Superficially, these issues may appear generational; they are not. These are issues that should unite all women and anyone else who believes that the legal profession generally, Asian American lawyers specifically and Asian American women especially are stronger together.

As leader of Phillips Lytle’s Data Security & Privacy and e-Discovery & Digital Forensics Practice Teams, Ms. Clark focuses on complex e-discovery and digital forensics, cybersecurity and data privacy, and complex commercial litigation. Ms. Clark has been awarded the Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E) and Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States (CIPP/US), preeminent designations by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). As a former Assistant District Attorney, she also handles white collar criminal matters and investigations.

Ms. Clark is a founding member of the Filipino American Lawyers Association of New York, a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity Champion Award Selection Committee and has been a member of the Asian American Bar Association of New York’s trial reenactment team for over a decade. She was the 2018 recipient of the Honorable Denny Chin ’78 Fordham Law Alumni Award for Excellence in the Legal Profession in 2018 and was named among Profiles in Diversity Journal’s 17th Annual Women Worth Watching^®, as well as to the Lawyers of Color’s Inaugural Nation’s Best List in 2019. She currently serves as a member of NFALA’s Advisory Board.

Phillips Lytle LLP is a preeminent law firm that is recognized nationally for its legal excellence. With offices across New York State and in Chicago, IL; Washington, D.C.; and Canada, our attorneys serve a multinational client base, including Fortune 1000 companies, global and regional financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, middle-market companies, startups, entrepreneurs and individuals on important matters affecting their businesses and personal wealth. For more information, visit phillipslytle.com.

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