WOZA Award Winner
Kai-Lie Chen is the Founder and Director of Kai-Lie Chen Attorneys Inc. a practising law firm of 25 legal professionals based in Morningside JHB offering commercial and corporate legal services to clients.
Congratulations to the first recipient of the Directors LegalPreneur Award presented at the WOZA Women In Law Awards SA gala dinner held at the Hilton Hotel Sandton on Saturday, 3rd August 2019. This award epitomises a new breed of lawyer thinking outside the box and was one of the inaugural event's top three awards.
Kai-Lie has worked in the legal profession and industry for amongst others Bowman Gilfillan Inc. and ENS and as corporate counsel for multi-national corporations including Siemens SA, BP SA and Asustek Computer Inc. She also serves on the Woman Leading in Law (WOLELA) Advisory Council and advocates the use of meditation, active gratitude, exercise and healthy eating in her own practice.
Kai-Lie spearheaded a proposal to bring the World Expo to SA in 2025, which would have yielded a cumulative economic impact of R 194 billion to SA between 2015 and 2025, a R 11 billion tax boost and the creation of 225,000 jobs. Sadly, the bid didn't secure political buy-in.
She also participated in Global Hackathon during February 2019, uniting diverse professions and corporates to create innovative legal solutions focused at making the world a better place by making legal services and products accessible and affordable to the general public. Her commitment towards finding new and innovative ways to improve, automate and make legal services more accessible continuously shares in this vision.
Kai-Lie Chen Attorneys Inc. is one of two preferred SA firms collaborating to represent the only African firm amongst 33 premiere international law firms associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. She also attended the 5th BRICS Legal Forum Conference in Cape Town during 2018 and has been invited to attend the 6th event in Brazil during October 2019.
Spot her in this 'City Press' (Monday, 12th August 2019) newspaper online article here.
Credits:
Photo: Courtesy of 'The Star - Early Edition (Tuesday, 13th August 2019) newspaper p. 11/24.
Source: Courtesy of 'Facebook / Asha Ramdin Singhania'.
WOZA Pinnacle Award Nominee
Well done to Kai-Lie Chen for also been amongst fourteen Pinnacle Award Nominees for the first-ever WOZA Women In Law Awards SA's ICON Award.
This award recognizes a woman lawyer who displays iconic achievements embracing thought innovation, exemplifies leadership, empowerment of other women, contribution to the law and is regarded as a trailblazer and change agent across the legal industry. The evening's top award was won by Advocate Kgomotso Moroka SC, the first black woman in SA to take silk. Source credit: Courtesy of ‘Woza.Today’.
Fighting for dignity
“If you ask me what I identify myself with. I remember when the first time I went to Taiwan and I worked there, that made me realize how South African I really am. It really, really did. I felt like a true banana in terms of possibly yellow on the outside but really South African in the inside. So if people what I feel in my heart, it is truly a South African heart.” ~ Kai-Lie Chen.
Click here to listen to Kai-Lie and and Francis Lai Hong, Vice-Chairperson of The Chinese Association Gauteng (TCA), share their experiences growing up Chinese in SA, the history of discrimination against our community and the Hate Speech Equality Court case during an informative radio interview with Eusebius McKaiser on Talk Radio 702 on Monday, 1st April 2019.
