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 a senior associate at Covington & Burling LLP, where he focuses his practice on venture capital and emerging companies. Adam began his legal career as an M&A 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 is a proud girl dad and enjoys playing tennis and indoor bouldering.
Adam co-founded AAPCL along with the Law School 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
Director
J.D. 2018
San Francisco Bay Area
Irene is a first-generation, Korean-American attorney based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is Counsel at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a nonpartisan philanthropic organization. Before joining the Foundation, Irene was an associate attorney at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where she advised tax-exempt organizations and other entities operating in the philanthropic sector. Prior to that, Irene was an associate attorney at DLA Piper LLP, where she focused her practice on international corporate tax planning and controversy matters.
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), 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
Director
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
Director
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.
Roger Chao
Co-Vice President
J.D. 2012
New York City
Roger Chao is Senior Counsel in the Legal & Business Affairs department of A+E Networks, where he handles television development, production, and license deals for brands that include The History Channel, Lifetime, A&E, and Vice TV. In a past life, Roger was a litigator at Arent Fox, where his practice focused on corporate arbitrations and white collar investigations.
Roger is Taiwanese-American, and he was born and raised in New Jersey. He is part of his company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee and is a member of the Asian American Bar Association of New York.
Roger currently lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he and his wife are raising the most incredible baby and toddler. When he’s not catching their colds, he’s on a mission to find the best wine bar in his neighborhood (he thinks he’s found it but needs to do more “research”).
Roger joined the AAPCL Board in 2024.
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