2020 Attorney of the Year

Paul Uyehara

We Will be Presenting Our Attorney of the Year Award at our Virtual Banquet, Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 7 pm!

Paul is a senior attorney for the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Federal Coordination and Compliance Section where he enforces civil rights requirements, particularly limited English proficiency enforcement, with federal grantees. Prior to his position with the US Department of Justice, Paul worked as a senior staff attorney for Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, specializing in language rights through the Language Access Project. However, Paul is best known as a leading authority in language access rights who holds a pioneer-level status amongst language access advocates.

Over the past two decades Paul has dedicated his career to safeguarding the rights of limited English proficient (LEP) persons. Paul is a major contributor to the advancement of language access standards. His counsel and participation on language access policy and best practice standards are often sought by state and national access to justice projects. With his expertise, he broadened the standards from a Spanish-only language alternative in language access planning to the inclusion of many other languages, so that access to services could reach larger sections of the LEP population. In doing so, he increased awareness and visibility on a systemic level for communities where the LEP populations often go unrecognized or considered.

Amongst his colleagues, Paul has always been generous with his knowledge of language access law and practices. He has mentored countless law students and attorneys and encouraged their collaboration with one another. In 2006, Paul founded the National Language Access Advocates Network (“N-LAAN”), a national organization, the first of its kind, for language access advocates to share resources and strategies to address language discrimination and promote language rights. This platform, which continues to be a main resource, provides a larger forum for advocates to effectively promote more uniform language access plans across the nation.

As a member of the local APA community, Paul has been an active member of numerous local APA organizations, including JACL and AAU. He is also a dedicated member of APABA-PA and continues to regularly attend the annual banquet and APABA-PA events when he is home from his job in DC.