Karen Lin is a co-chair of AABANY’s Pro Bono and Community Service Committee. She created and managed the remote clinic prior to its transition to the Legal Information Referral Service Clinic, and supervised law students in drafting and translating the COVID-19 Resource page into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. She organized virtual presentation clinics that provide “Know-Your-Rights” information and referrals to limited-English-proficient communities.
Karen currently works as a Court Attorney Referee in Kings County Surrogate’s Court. She has been part of the New York State court system since 1999, having served as a principal law clerk in the New York County Supreme Court, Civil Division, and as a former judge on the New York City Civil Court’s Housing Part bench. Prior to the judicial branch, Karen served in the New York State legislature as District Counsel to State Senator Catherine Abate in the 27th district. She is a former litigation associate at Lansner & Kubitschek representing indigent families in civil rights actions against the Administration for Children’s Services. She has taught at Queens College and frequently presents on Article 17-A guardianships of developmentally disabled individuals and the administration of estates.
Karen is a strong advocate of Asian-American history as found in her blog article “Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month” featured in the Historical Society of the New York Courts. See https://history.nycourts.gov/aapi-heritage-month/. She is a graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo where she developed curricula and student-taught a seminar course on Asian-American history through the Department of American Studies, co-founded the Asian American Student Union, and founded Delta Phi Omega, a multi-ethnic service-oriented sorority. Karen received her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School where she was active in the minority law students associations and a recipient of the AALSA Alumni Award. She is active in her local church in Queens and is endeavoring to raise three teenage sons