Dear SABA and Our Friends,
As the current President of the South Asian Bar Association of North America (“SABA”), I am excited to communicate with you about SABA and where we are going in this year. In 2022, we celebrate twenty years of SABA. How far we have come! SABA now has twenty-nine (29) chapters across the United States and Canada and forms the largest bar association of South Asian attorneys in North America.
Our Mission is to strengthen the rapidly growing South Asian legal community with a recognized and trusted forum focused on: (1) Professional growth and development within our membership throughout an entire career path; (2) Promoting diversity and inclusion for South Asian attorneys and for the legal profession as a whole; (3) Promoting and supporting civil rights and combatting efforts to limit and marginalize South Asians, immigrants, and other diverse communities; and (4) Providing access to justice through educating the South Asian community with legal information and providing access to a network of pro bono services.
As I said at the Conference, our agenda is great and ambitious. We will continue to deliver top-notch programming that highlights our talented and diverse attorneys across North America, provide and expand our professional development programs to meet you in your practice, and create more links between our members and chapters. We will continue to be a powerful voice for our community and for our allies, honing our voices as advocates for racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and other communities that have faced marginalization. We will spotlight and promote our exceptionally talented women lawyers in our organization. We will continue to ally with other bar associations to further our mutual goals. And we will work together as one, virtually and in person, on issues ranging from development and diversity to pro bono services.
We are so proud of so many of our initiatives, but I will highlight a few here. In 2022, we were thrilled to up our advocacy efforts to the highest level we have had. Our team was invited by the Coalition of Bar Associations of Color (“CBAC”) to advocate along with the National Bar Association (“NBA”), the Hispanic National Bar Association (“HNBA”), the National Native American Bar Association (“NNABA”), and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (“NAPABA”) in lobbying with the U.S. House and Senate on urgent issues affecting our communities ranging from immigration to government surveillance to criminal justice reform to voting rights to judicial diversity. We have also developed a rich voice in advocating on issues affecting our community and others. And we will continue our tradition of SABA Lobby Day in April, 2022, by bringing our members to directly advocate on issues we face.
We have also developed a richer and deeper professional development program than in the past. In 2021, SABA unveiled and this year we continue with the SABA Leadership Institute (“SLI”). Led by Vice President of Professional Development Priya Bathija the SLI is an innovative leadership program designed to “mind the gap” in leadership development for mid-career attorneys.
SLI brings together a fellowship class of diverse attorneys with 10-15 years of experience. Over a period of eight months, these fellows learn from each other, seasoned SABA attorney mentors, and experts in the field. The program provides tools, resources and education that will allow these fellows to excel in their careers, lead SABA, and serve in their communities. We are also bringing together more Programming (virtual and in-person) for all of our broad and rich base of practitioners to develop and highlight our legal talent.
No doubt that there is a lot of work ahead. But we have the team to execute on our vision. Our new Executive Committee is as talented as we have had. (Please see above to learn more about our amazing team.)
For today, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I am a proud member (and co-founder and past president) of SABA Metropolitan St. Louis and have been active on the SABA Executive Committee for the past five years. (I lived in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and San Francisco before moving to St. Louis.) I spent the past ten years practicing as an intellectual property litigator at local firms before moving in house to MiTek, Inc. where I work on intellectual property and litigation issues. And I am the proud husband of Heather Marie Mehta and father of Bennett (7) and Anika (4).
In closing this first letter to you, I cannot be more excited to help guide the organization back to a new normal, taking us through Lobby Day in April, 2022, and culminating in our Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA on July 14-17, 2022. This year will be one when we come together as one, virtually and physically, to do the biggest things. I am thrilled to be on the ride with you. Let’s go!
Samir Mehta
President, SABA North America
