Meet the Board
Adam Tsao
Co-President
J.D. 2017
San Francisco Bay Area
Adam is a first-generation, Chinese-American attorney based in San Francisco. He is an emerging companies and venture capital associate at Covington & Burling LLP’s San Francisco office, where he advises a broad range of public and private companies and entrepreneurs with respect to venture capital and strategic investments, venture capital financings, and general corporate matters. Previously, Adam was based in Washington, D.C., where he was a corporate associate at Covington & Burling LLP and, prior to that, a corporate associate at Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom LLP.
Adam previously founded Legal Beta, which was a platform for driving innovation and creativity in the legal industry, and he is the author of The Creativity Playbook for Lawyers: Strategies for the Business of Legal Practice.
He previously served as president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association Educational Fund (AEF), on the Capital Region Advisory Board for the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and as an at-large board member for the Penn Club of D.C.
Adam’s hobbies include tennis, indoor bouldering, and taking his Chihuahua to the park.
Adam joined the AAPCL Board in 2020.
P. Cecilia Liu
Co-President
LL.M. 2013, J.D. 2015
New York City
Cecilia is a Taiwanese-American attorney and legal technology practitioner based in New York City. She works as a Practice Technology Manager at White & Case’s New York office, consulting with and advising attorneys, business professionals and clients regarding the use of technology in transactional matters and overseeing the evaluation and selection of new technology. Prior to joining White & Case, she was a finance associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell and Kirkland & Ellis, where she represented both financial institutions and private equity clients in leveraged financing transactions.
Cecilia also serves as an at-large board member of the Penn Carey Law Alumni Society Board of Managers and as President, Millennial Group for the American Beiyinu Alumnae Foundation. In addition, she previously served as Chief of Staff of the Taiwan Chapter of Summer Institute of Computational Social Science (SICSS).
When Cecilia is not thinking about how AI could help attorneys do their work more effectively, she enjoys playing tennis and horseback riding. Fun fact about Cecilia: while working for a community service project in college, she was tasked to prepare all the meals for the 35-person team for a month. She’s been an enthusiastic cook ever since.
Cecilia joined the AAPCL Board in 2022.
Irene Hong
Vice President of Communications
J.D. 2018
San Francisco Bay Area
Irene is a first-generation, Korean-American attorney based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a tax-exempt organizations associate attorney at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP’s San Francisco office, where she supports private foundations, public charities, social welfare organizations, and other tax-exempt entities, many of which are active worldwide.
Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Irene was an international tax associate attorney at DLA Piper LLP’s Silicon Valley office, where she advised multinationals with streamlining their business operations through intellectual property (IP) migration and entity restructuring strategies, supply chain optimization, pre-acquisition internal carve-outs, and post-acquisition structure integration. She also advised clients in tax controversies, focusing on the US federal income tax implications of cross-border operations.
During law school, Irene served as co-president of the University of Pennsylvania Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, volunteered with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project in Philadelphia, and completed externships with UN Women in New York City and the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC.
Irene is active in the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA SF), Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Silicon Valley (APABA SV), and Korean American Bar Association of Northern California (KABANC). In her free time, Irene enjoys powerlifting, cross-stitching, and writing blog posts for diverse law students.
In addition to her J.D., Irene also earned a M.S. in Social Policy and B.A. in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Irene joined the AAPCL Board in 2021.
Jing Xu
Secretary
LL.M. 2014
San Francisco Bay Area
Jing Xu is a first-generation, Chinese-American attorney based in the Silicon Valley. She is an associate in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she focuses on corporate and securities law, including emerging companies & venture capital, as well as private and public debt and equity financing.
Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Jing worked as a compliance specialist in the legal department for a tech start-up company, where she advised the company on compliance issues in various business transactions, IP transactions and privacy protection practice. Outside of her main job, she also volunteered at Asian Law Alliance, helping underrepresented communities with immigration and housing needs.
During her free time, Jing enjoys hiking, tennis and escape rooms. She also loves mixology and wine tasting.
Jing joined the AAPCL Board in 2023.
Rui Li
J.D. 2017
San Francisco Bay Area
Rui Li is an intellectual property litigator based in San Francisco. Born and raised in China, Rui came to the United States to study physics and engineering, and ended up pursuing her J.D. at Penn Carey Law after college. Currently, Rui is a counsel at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, where she focuses on patent infringement and trade secrets misappropriation matters involving complex technologies. Previously, Rui was an IP litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Outside of work, Rui loves volunteering at the Federal Pro Se Clinic where she advises pro se litigants to tackle procedural issues in federal courts. She is also a Kilgore Conversation Facilitator to help connect Penn Carey Law alumnae for career development.
Rui loves cooking, backpacking, visiting farmers markets, and playing with her Corgi, Napoleon.
Rui joined the AAPCL Board in 2023.
Past AAPCL Board Members
Tanya Xu (L’16), 2020 to 2022
James Park (L’14), 2020 to 2022
Dafan Zhang (L’14), 2022 to 2023
Matthew Mai (L’19), 2022 to 2023