We are excited to announce that VABANC’s 27th Annual Gala Dinner will be on Friday, September 19, 2025 at Villa Ragusa (35 S Second St., Campbell, CA 95008).
The evening is a celebration of VABANC’s commitment to cultivating and nurturing relationships between Vietnamese American judges, legal professionals, law students, and the Vietnamese American communities of Northern California.
Our Gala Dinner will recognize recipients for the “Trailblazer,” “Community Impact,” and “Lifetime Achievement” Awards. Scholarships will be conferred to Bay Area Vietnamese American law students who demonstrate a commitment to serving the needs of the Vietnamese American community and intend on furthering their work in public interest.
Betty Duong represents District 2 on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, which includes more than 400,000 residents of San Jose in the Downtown, East Side, Southside, and surrounding neighborhoods. The district is also home to the historic and iconic Japantown, Little Saigon, Little Italy, and Little Portugal neighborhoods. The proud daughter of immigrants and a graduate of De Anza College, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis King Hall School of Law, Betty is the first Vietnamese American and the first Asian American woman to serve on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and a lifelong resident of District Two.
Founded in 1997, APALI has combined training and community building to develop a pipeline of leaders in an effort to increase representation, equity, and racial justice. The organization has trained over 2,000 leaders in the nonprofit, education, government, and business sectors since its inception.
Dr. Michael Chang is the Founder and Executive Director of APALI. He has served in public office for almost 20 years and is a well-recognized civic leader in Silicon Valley.
In 1997, Dr. Chang became the first Asian American to serve as Mayor of Cupertino. In the same year, he founded APALI and led it for over two decades to build a strong pipeline and community of Asian American civic leaders.
Dr. Chang is also De Anza College emeritus professor or civic leadership and retired chairman of the Asian American Studies Department. Dr. Chang earned both undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Business Administration from San Francisco State University. He also earned a Ph.D. in Education, as well as both master’s degrees in East Asian Studies and Political Science, from Stanford University.
Judge Thang Nguyen Barrett was the first Vietnamese American to serve on the Municipal Court in California when appointed by Governor Pete Wilson in 1997. Following court unification in 1998, he became California’s first Vietnamese American Superior Court judge and the first Vietnamese American judge in the United States to sit on a court of general jurisdiction.
Judge Barrett’s judicial experience on the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, has included serving as a trial judge in civil and criminal cases. He has also served as Case Manager in the Civil Division, Presiding Judge of the Appellate Division, Supervising Judge of the Palo Alto Courthouse, and Supervising Judge of the Criminal Division.
In 2015, Judge Barrett was appointed to the Commission on the Future of California’s Court System by Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. In 2019, Judge Barrett was named Trial Judge of the Year by the Santa Clara County Trial Lawyers Association.
He was a recipient of the Trailblazer Award from the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California, Freedom Award from Asian Americans for Community Involvement, Legal Impact Award from Asian Law Alliance, and Unsung Heroes Award from the Minority Access Committee of the Santa Clara County Bar Association. In 2000, in commemoration of the Fall of Saigon, Judge Barrett was profiled by New Horizon’s “25 Vietnamese Americans in 25 Years” publication as one of the 25 Vietnamese Americans in the country “who have made significant contributions to the Vietnamese community and to the fabric of American society.”
Judge Barrett received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from American University in 1985 and his Juris Doctor degree from University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings) in 1988. Prior to taking the bench, he was a deputy district attorney in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, where he was Santa Clara County’s first Vietnamese American prosecutor.
Proceeds will go towards providing scholarships for future Vietnamese American law students, and ensuring critical resources are available to continue the work of promoting professional development for Vietnamese Americans in the legal community.
VABANC was formed to cultivate and nurture professional relationships between Vietnamese American judges, attorneys, law students, and the Vietnamese American communities in Northern California.
With your support, VABANC has accomplished so much in the last twenty-nine years, including:
- Celebrating the appointment of numerous Vietnamese American judges to the bench in California, with the most recent being the appointment of the Honorable Judge Nhan Vu;
- Raising over $50,000 in scholarship funds to support our next generation of lawyers, including law students from Berkeley Law, Santa Clara Law, and UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings);
- Establishing the VABANC Law Foundation, a charitable arm of VABANC that offers a year-long public interest fellowship which has grown to $50,000 annually and has fostered the work of seven public interest attorneys working with various legal aid organizations to promote justice and access to legal services and resources for those in the community, particularly those from under resourced or underserved communities;
- Celebrating our ten years of pro bono legal clinics supporting hundreds of community members with in-language support through legal consultations, including establishing a legal clinic with the Vietnamese American Service Center in San Jose in 2023/2024;
- Elevating our mentorship program spearheaded by the Honorable Judge Jacqueline Duong where experienced attorneys are paired with law students and new/transitioning attorneys; and
- Launching the National Conference of Vietnamese American Attorneys (NCVAA), which will be celebrating its 19th anniversary this year.
A big thank you to our sponsors for supporting the 2025 Gala Dinner!
Diamond Sponsors:
Gold Sponsors:
Silver Sponsors:
Bronze Sponsors:
We are grateful for the partnership in building a community of Vietnamese American legal professionals.
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