Nov. 4, 2011

The South Asian Bar Association of Southern California hosted its inaugural Starry Night Reception and Awards Ceremony on Oct. 20. The celebration took place at the Target Terrace above the Grammy Museum at the L.A. Live Complex. More than 200 guests attended the reception. Guests included members, firm attorneys, in-house counsel, judges and business leaders. The event drew guests from the South Asian community at large, as well as the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Japanese American Bar Association, Southern California Chinese American Bar Association and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. “It is wonderful to see how far our community of South Asians practicing law has come. Years ago it was difficult to get 20 of us together and today SABA is hosting events of this magnitude. It gives me great pride to see the strides SABA-SC is making and the impact it is having on the community,” said Kevin Parikh past-president of SABA-SC, current advisory board member and CEO of Avasant. At the reception, the newest board members of the SABA-SC and the SABA-SC’s Public Interest Foundation took their oaths of office, administered by Judge Dolly Gee of U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. During the ceremony, Gee focused her remarks on the importance of attorney involvement with bar associations; her own career path, which was influenced by bar association involvement; and a reminder to the lawyers attending of the importance of civic contribution. SABA-SC also formally announced the recipients of the 2011 Young Luminary and Radiant Counsel Awards. Pankit Doshi, who recived the 2011 Young Luminary award, is an associate at Jackson Lewis, LLP. Among his other contributions, Doshi was honored for his recent appointment to the California State Bar Council on Access and Fairness. Manohar Wadhwa, the 2011 Radiant Counsel awardee, serves as assistant general counsel at Xerox Corp. Wadhwa was honored for his work and leadership as one of the earliest South Asian in-house counsels in California and his commitment to diversity.