Maseru, Lesotho 1977 - Gwenn, age 7 (with the hat in the front) with her mother and father, grandmother, two sisters, and friend
dad decided to join them. Gwenn’s mom applied for a visa through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, a lottery system, and won. Gwenn’s family viewed America as the land of opportunity, and winning that visa seemed more beneficial than any amount of money, since with it came the hope for jobs, advancement, and opportunity. Gwenn’s family moved to Los Angeles and took any jobs they could get. Gwenn worked as a nanny, waitress, and doctor’s office assistant. They traveled by bus for three hours to get to some of the jobs. Gwenn started school at Pasadena City College and transferred to UC Berkeley. She had a threeyear-old son at the time. Influenced by injustices in her native country, Gwenn decided that she wanted to become a lawyer. She started law school at Boalt with a six-year-old and a sixmonth-old. Because of her childhood experiences and her passion for human rights, she worked at the International Human Rights Clinic at Berkeley. After passing the bar in 2000, Gwenn worked in corporate and energy law. In 2010, she opened her own law firm, California Power Law Group. She recently joined the Buchalter law firm as a shareholder and is chair of its Energy Practice Group.
Yuri Kvichko was born in the former Soviet Union and lived in the area which later became Ukraine. His family left the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. as refugees in 1991, shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall (1989), and three months before Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet Union dissolved. Yuri was 10-years-old at the time. Yuri had learned some English both in school and at home from an English instructor who came into his house while he lived in the Soviet Union. He recalls the trip to the U.S. as especially memorable, because right after he got over the jet lag, he was told, “remem-
ber that country you once came from? It is no more.” Yuri went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from UC San Diego, around the same time as the biotech collapse. He decided not to pursue his Ph.D. in science and instead attended Thomas Jefferson School of Law on a full scholarship. He transferred to UC Davis, where he graduated and passed the bar in 2011. Yuri worked as general counsel for a company and now heads up his own law firm, YK Legal Services, where he focuses on busi- 1980’s in Soviet Union - Yuri in his school uniform with his mother ness law matters.
Eric Carin came to the U.S. in 2006, after being a private practitioner in the Philippines for over 10 years. He came from a family of attorneys, and he pursued law in the footsteps of his father. Eric’s wife was presented with a good work opportunity in the U.S., and the family, including two children, moved to San Francisco initially. The family lived in various locations in the U.S. before settling in the Sacramento area in 2010. As a foreign lawyer who had practiced law for more than five years abroad and had not attended a U.S. law school, Eric was eligible to practice law in only California and New York. He challenged the California bar exam and passed it in 2013. He currently works at Borton Petrini, LLP, where he practices family law.
Eric and his family, circa September 2005, Cebu City, Philippines
www.sacbar.org | March/April 2018 | SACRAMENTO LAWYER | 1918~2018 CENTENNIAL
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