January 22, 2007
Lawyers Weekly Diversity Heroes
PAUL W. LEE
Whether as a lawyer or a community loyalist, this big-firm partner remains true to his Asian-American heritage
Birth: Oct. 16, 1950; Boston
Education: Cornell Law School (1976); Columbia University (1972)
Bar admission: 1981
Professional experience: Partner, Goodwin Procter, Boston (1984-present); associate, Goodwin Procter (1980-1984); associate, Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, New York City (1976-1980)
Honors/achievements: American Bar Association/Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession Spirit of Excellence Award (2007); Cornell Law School Alumni Exemplary Public Service Award (2006); Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus Good Guy Award (2006); National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Trailblazer Award (2002)
Role models: Goodwin Procter attorney Richard A. Soden — “When I first joined the firm, my role model and mentor was Richard Soden, founder of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association; for the longest time, we were the only two lawyers of color. So he helped me find my way.� Boston attorney Caroline J. Chang — “I grew up with her in Chinatown and followed her example of community service.�
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To understand how Paul W. Lee achieved a prestigious partnership in the big Boston firm of Goodwin Procter, one need only look a few blocks west of the firm's offices in a tony tower on State Street to the city's crowded Chinatown neighborhood.
The Lee family home was on a site later converted into a parking lot and used as such for 40 years until it was developed as housing. With the paving of the parcel, the family had been forced to move elsewhere. Meanwhile, Lee's father worked 12-hour days in a restaurant while his mother did piecework in a sewing factory.
"Both my parents were very motivational," Lee says of his parents' hopes for their children. "The whole emphasis was to get us an education."
As their son was nearing high school age, the Lees moved to Brookline and enrolled Paul at Brookline High School. From there, he pursued a degree in engineering and computer science at Columbia University, during the tumultuous late 1960s.
Political activism on the Columbia campus convinced Lee that his future lay not in science, but in the law.
"I got my first taste of advocacy," he says of his undergraduate years. "I thought that would interest me more than engineering."
After graduation from Cornell Law School, Lee applied for work at several Boston law firms but received 50 rejection letters, including one from Goodwin Procter. He returned to New York City and joined the firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine — as only its second Asian-American lawyer.
Still hoping to practice in his hometown, Lee persevered with applications to Boston firms. In 1980, Goodwin Procter responded, this time with a letter of acceptance; four years later, he was a partner.
Even with his responsibilities at Goodwin in corporate finance and securities law, Lee, at 56, remains mindful of his roots in the Asian-American community and of the difficulties encountered by his own and other minority groups in the legal profession.
"I think if you ask any minority lawyer" about advancing in a law career, Lee says, "they'd tell you it's a higher bar. They feel they have to be better to be noticed. Advancement doesn't come so easily."
While he acknowledges the presence of students of color on law school campuses and the improving employment outlook for them as they enter the practice — "there's a lot of good trailblazing that's been done by minority lawyers so that there's much more opportunity than in the past," he says — Lee contends they have been less successful in achieving higher-ranking positions.
"Where there hasn't been progress is getting enough lawyers of color in the upper echelon of the profession," he says. "There still are not enough partners, judges, in-house lawyers. ... That's where we have work to do."
Not that he has been inactive on that front. In 1983, he helped found the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts, and he served as its first president. In 1995, he assumed the presidency of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
NAPABA, in particular, remains a cause close to his heart. Several years ago, Lee recommended that the association establish a Community Law Fellowship, its purpose being to provide entry-level positions to young lawyers interested in public service work on behalf of the Asian-Pacific-American population. In a show of strong commitment to the program, he endowed the fellowship with an initial gift of $100,000 — said to be the largest single contribution by an individual in the history of the NAPABA Law Foundation.
Back in Chinatown, on the very site where the Lee family home once stood, an organization known as the Asian Community Development Corp. can take credit for the 2004 opening of a 250-unit mixed-income housing development.
More recently, ACDC was designated developer of an even larger, affordable residential complex — this one to be built on Chinatown property where the Lees also lived. The development corporation was founded about 10 years ago with the assistance of a downtown Boston attorney by the name of Paul Lee.