Events work today. The Unity Bar Association strives to continue the work started by its founders to use its diversity to address different points of view in order to work together towards a common goal and to make the legal community better. One of the ways the Unity Bar puts these ideas into action is to take turns leading the annual dinner. This year the lead affiliate was the La Raza, with Michael Terhorst serving as chair and fearless leader. The Honorable Elena Duarte, Associate Justice of the Third District Court of Appeal, served as the master of ceremonies. She kept the program moving and finished by 8:30 p.m. The dinner guests filled the grand ballroom and included justices, judges, attorneys, law school deans and professors, law students, community members, friends and relatives. Unity’s good friend, Judge Consuelo Callahan of the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit introduced the master of ceremonies, Justice Duarte. Justice Duarte welcomed the keynote speaker, retired California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno. Eight scholarships were awarded to deserving law students by each of the seven affiliates, which were enhanced by $1,000 matching scholarship A dancer from Folklorico Aztlan de Sacramento, a local dance troupe that specializes in the folkloric dances of Mexico, performs at the Unity Bar Dinner.
Unity Bar Planning Committee. From left: Kara Ueda, Shama Mesiwala, Justice Elena Duarte, Patricia Tsubokawa Reeves, Michael Terhorst, Christine Jacob, and Katie Patterson. Planning Committee members not pictured: Avi Glikman, Amilia Glikman, Dianne Dobbs, and Alana Mathews.
from the Unity Bar. Seven Community Service Awards recognized outstanding community service by each affiliate with plaques and a few minutes at the podium to speak to the legal community. The scholarship winners were Lance Martin (La Raza), Tara Shabahang (SABA), Hanh Le (ABAS), Elise Wineberg and Sara Harbarger (LMFBA), Katherine Fowler (WMBA), Gerald Latasa (SacLEGAL), and Beth Weaver (WLS). The Community Service winners were Raquel Aldana (La Raza), Sonia Fernandes (SABA), Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association (ABAS), A Family Promise (LMFBA), Scott Syphax (WMBA), Shara Murphy (SacLEGAL), and Ashley West (WLS). Special thanks went to the event sponsor, U.C. Davis School of Law. This year there were a record number of table sponsors. They included the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association, Beeson Terhorst LLP, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP, La Raza Lawyers Association of Sacramento, Downey Brand LLP, Law Office of Luis Cespedes, Law Offices of Jerry Chong & Alice Wong, Leonard M. Friedman Bar Association, Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni LLP, Stoel Rives LLP, University of the Pacific Mc George School of Law, and the Wiley Manuel Bar Association of Sacramento. Sacramento’s Mariachi Mi Tierra band performed lively party music during the reception hour and the Folklorico Aztlan De Sacramento performed beautiful dances during the dinner. Judge Thadd Blizzard and his wife donated a case of wine from the depths of their wine cellar for the raffle, which will fund future scholarships. All in all, the 2011 Unity Bar Association’s 25th Annual Gala celebration was a wonderful and successful evening. It offered all of its guests an opportunity to see and talk to someone different. It was a time for professional fun, to learn something you did not know before, to have an interesting conversation, to see special recognitions and awards for work well done, and to engage in some civil socializing. This bar event, again, proved that diversity is a wonderful and rich experience that enhances all of the legal community’s endeavors.
Student scholarship winners from left: Elise Wineberg, Beth Weaver, Lance Martin, Katherine Fowler, Gerald Latasa, Sara Harbager, Tara Shabahang, and Hanh Le.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 SACRAMENTO LAWYER
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