2020 ACBA Board of Directors

Our 2020 Board of Directors were sworn in in January at our 2020 Installation and Distinguished Service Awards Dinner. We thanked Past-President Cheryl Poncini for her service and welcomed Lauren Powe as our 2020 Board President. We were eager to hear from Justice Martin Jenkins, Governor Newsom’s Appointment Secretary about his personal journey and about what Governor Newsom is looking for in Judicial nominees.

Now that our Board has had a moment to settle in, we would like to introduce you to our hard working 2020 directors!

Lauren Powe, President

Lauren Powe is a Deputy Attorney General with Department of Justice in the Employment and Administrative Mandate Section. She served as the 2014 ACBA Barristers Executive Committee Chair. Lauren was the 2015 recipient of the ACBA Distinguished Service Award for New Lawyer. Lauren was the 2018 Chair of the California Young Lawyers Association Board and currently serves as the Secretary of the Earl Warren American Inns of Court Board.

Pamela Ross, Vice-President

Pamela Ross is the founder and CEO of the All for the Family Legal Clinic, a public benefit corporation dedicated to providing low cost legal assistance to the San Francisco Bay Area. She primarily handles family law cases, but also works in the areas of estate planning and landlord-tenant law. She has been a mentor to new attorneys by participating in the ACBA Barristers Mentorship Program, and is the  former Chair of the ACBA Family Law Section.

Vincent Tong, President-Elect

Vincent Tong is the owner of TONG LAW, an employment and business law practice in Oakland. He is an active member of the ACBA, and served as the Chair for the Barristers Section in 2015. Vincent currently serves as a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association’s Executive Board. He is a member of the Earl Warren American Inn of Court, Asian American Bar Association, Filipino Bar Association of Northern California, and California Lawyers for the Arts. Vincent has been selected for inclusion in the Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars List since 2015, and was the 2016  recipient of the ACBA Distinguished Service Award for New Lawyer.

Yen Chau is an experienced employment attorney at Donahue Fitzgerald LLP.  She provides expert employment advice, counseling, and litigation defense to clients. Yen is an active member of the legal community, regularly presenting and authoring articles on current employment topics, and she is a former President of the Contra Costa Bar Association’s Employment Section.

Jo-Anna Nieves formed The Nieves Law Firm to help restore the reputations of those who have been accused of crimes and help them plan for a better future.  Jo-Anna has been named Alameda County Bar Association’s Distinguished New Lawyer (2017) and has been recognized as a Northern California Rising Star Super Lawyer for the past 4 years in a row. She is currently the Chair of the ACBA Judicial Appointments Evaluation Committee and a member of the Earl Warren Inns of Court.

Kristin Smith practices in  Burnham Brown’s Employment practice group.  She has over 12 years of experience handling employment matters from wage and hour cases to discrimination and wrongful termination.  She has litigated state, federal, and administrative employment actions. Ms. Smith has managed non-litigation transactions and alternative dispute resolution proceedings as well as advised clients on day-to-day human resource issues, compliance, policy updates, and employee trainings.

H. Glenn Kim has been a Deputy District Attorney with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for the past 9 years, where he currently handles violent felony cases.  He previously worked in the Contra Costa County’s District Attorney’s Office, and has served on the boards of the Asian American Prosecutors’ Association and the Korean American Bar Association of Northern California. 

Alice Cheng practices exclusively in the field of family law, currently at the Law Office of Vanessa Candelaria. Prior to devoting her practice to family law, Alice worked as a Deputy District Attorney at the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. Alice was the proud recipient of the ACBA New Attorney in 2018, and she has been selected for inclusion in the Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars List since 2018. Alice speaks Cantonese and basic conversational Mandarin.

Autumn Paine works with people charged with all kinds of crimes and juveniles in delinquency proceedings, as well as with people seeking post-conviction relief. Committed to supporting the legal community, she currently sits on the Board of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ), and is a long-time member of the California Public Defender’s Association.

Peter Shelton is  the owner of Peter Shelton Law, an estate planning and inheritance litigation firm in Berkeley. Peter is certified by the California State Bar as a Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law, and is a Past-President of East Bay Trusts and Estates Lawyers (EBTEL). He has been named a Super Lawyer every year since 2015.

Byron Toma is an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at BART where he works on transactional matters including public contracting, free speech, governmental transparency, and public health and safety issues. He holds a JD from Santa Clara University (SCU) School of Law and an LLM in environmental law from Golden Gate University School of Law. Byron has served as an adjunct lecturer at the SCU School of Law, and still guest  lectures.

Ex-officio

Cheryl Poncini, Past-President is a Deputy District Attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, where she has worked for over 40 years in a variety of assignments in both the juvenile and adult divisions. She is currently assigned to the Elder and Dependent Adult Protection Unit. Cheryl is also a member of the Fellowship Grants Board of Founder Region Soroptimists, a community-based non-profit that works to improve the lives of women and girls locally and internationally through education and economic empowerment.

Eileen Eib is a staff attorney for the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, Unified Family Court. She previously served as a content attorney for the Continuing Education of the Bar and practiced family law for several years.  She is the 2020 Chair of the ACBA Barristers Executive Committee, and was a Co-Chair of the ACBA Barristers Socials Subcommittee in 2018 and 2019.

Please reach out and say hello at our next event!