Professor Nadine Tan’s tenure as president of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association (SCCLA) has neatly aligned with her goals as a lawyer and legal educator to improve DEI outcomes and create community in the legal profession.
Inspired by her experiences networking and finding mentorship through bar associations as a law student, Tan sought to find a “home” within the legal community in Los Angeles once she became a practicing lawyer. She was drawn to SCCLA for its history as the oldest Asian Pacific American bar association in the country and its connection to her own identity, and first joined its board in 2018. She was elected to a one-year term as president in January 2024.
“Being Asian American is an important part of who I am, and I hoped to be able to merge my personal and professional identities and ambitions,” Tan said. “Once I joined the SCCLA board and learned more about the group’s programs, I knew I wanted to make a bigger impact and lead the organization one day.”
Profiled by the Los Angeles Daily Journal, Tan’s work as a board member has included helping to launch a community service project called “SCCLA Cares,” which provided free meals to over 1,000 people during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, including first responders, senior citizens, and children through donations and partnerships with local restaurants. SCCLA also participated in a Law Day, where board members spoke to teens in the Chinatown Service Center’s youth program about their paths to becoming lawyers and held a clothing drive for business clothing to donate to the teens. Tan has also helped organize CLE programs about bias in the profession and collaborated with other affinity bars on events focused on networking, mentorship, wellness, and pro bono work.
At LLS, inclusion and access to justice are part of every student’s legal education, and the faculty and administration strive to model this mission every day, Tan said.
“I think Loyola’s faculty and staff genuinely care about the students' holistic success and well-being, and we aim to equip them with the tools to effect change in the myriad wonderful ways that our students do,” Tan said. “I’m always inspired when I see students go out of their way to pay it forward and help someone in their shoes.”
Tan pointed out that law school prepares students for the legal profession, and by putting equity and inclusion at the forefront of its coursework and community values, LLS is creating better lawyers.
“Being able to see both sides of the story, practicing empathy, and effectively communicating with different audiences are core competencies of being a lawyer, which we can develop through exposure to ideas and experiences that differ from our own,” she said. “I also think that centering DEI in our mission helps students develop the self-knowledge they need to understand who they are, what they value, and what kind of impact they’d like to leave on the profession and community at-large. This, in turn, makes them better advocates.”
Tan joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 2023 and teaches Legal Research & Writing. She is also an adviser in the law school’s Academic Success Program, which helps ensure that every law student is afforded the chance to excel, pass the bar exam, and become a practicing attorney. She began her career as a law clerk to the Hon. S. James Otero (Ret.) of the United States District Court for the Central District of California before practicing general and employment litigation at Parker, Milliken, Clark, O’Hara & Samuelian APC. Tan taught legal ethics as an adjunct professor at her alma mater, the USC Gould School of Law, and was most recently associate counsel at Green Dot Public Schools California, a nonprofit network of public charter schools in Los Angeles.