Affinity Bar Spotlight > South Asian Bar Association of Washington

King County Presiding Judge Ketu Shah speaks on the judges’ panel at the 2025 SABAW Annual Gala. Pictured from left to right are the panelists: the Honorable Kuljinder Dhillon, the Honorable Rania Rampersad, and the Honorable Ketu Shah. The Honorable David Keenan and the Honorable Andrea Jarmon also joined the panel from the audience. Photos by Karan Malhotra of CocoRabbits Photography.

BY SHASHI VIJAY AND SMITHA GUNDAVAJHALA

The South Asian Bar Association of Washington (SABAW) was founded in 2001 by a group of South Asian attorneys who sought to create an organized voice and empower South Asian attorneys in Washington. Today, it provides South Asian legal professionals, and the broader legal community, with a wide range of professional, social, and educational events, including mentorship initiatives, community engagement opportunities, and continuing legal education. Each year, SABAW also hosts its signature event, the Annual Gala, which has featured judges, advocates, and legal voices from around the world.

This year, SABAW held its Annual Gala on Oct. 17, 2025. The gala brought together legal professionals from across the state, as well as from other chapters of the South Asian Bar Association in other countries.

Highlights of the gala included a panel with King County Presiding Judge Ketu Shah, Hon. Rania Rampersad, and Hon. Kuljinder Dhillon, with spotlights on Hon. David Keenan and Hon. Andrea Jarmon. The event included a trivia competition highlighting both American and South Asian culture, as well as dance performances from Junoon, an all-girls competitive Bollywood fusion dance team from the University of Washington. The gala concluded with scholarship awards to deserving law students Rina Ravisundar and Devin Dulay, as well as an exceptional recent graduate, Tsechu Dolma.

As Hon. Ketu Shah shared on a judges’ panel at the gala, the strength of this bar is the diversity of cultures and traditions that is encompassed by the term “South Asian,” and the diversity of experiences and practices that make up SABAW. Members in attendance included law students, young lawyers, partners and founders of law firms, and judges. The evening was a nod to the theme for the year: combining fun with consistency in the way that SABAW shows up.

ABOVE: The Board of Directors of the South Asian Bar Association of Washington worked all year to make the gala, and all of SABAW’s programming, happen. Pictured from left to right are Tripti Sinha, Hemashree Subramaniam, Shashi Vijay, Gurjot Narwal, Smitha Gundavajhala, and Amrita Srivastava. Board members Tanisha Sudarshan, Akansha Bhat, Dev Narasimhan, and Sindoori Sriram could not attend and are not pictured.

AT LEFT: Attendees at the gala got their henna done by Richa Singh from Jhilmil Henna & Art. This year’s SABAW Annual Gala continued in the tradition of prior galas, offering henna to guests just in time for the Diwali holiday. The festivities also included Bollywood fusion dance performances by UW Junoon.

MORE ONLINE > For more information about SABAW, including how to become a member, visit www.sabaw.org.

Throughout this year, SABAW has continued its tradition of community, collaboration, and solidarity, strengthening its collective energy and purpose. SABAW kicked off the year with networking events, and in April partnered with Indian American Community Services (IACSWA), the longest running organization serving Indian Americans in the Pacific Northwest, for a “Know Your Rights” webinar focused on immigration rights and travel regulations—an incredibly timely event for the South Asian community.

In May, SABAW joined in on a WSBA “Reaffirmation of the Oath” event, a recommitment to our responsibilities as members of the Washington State Bar. SABAW partnered with several of its sister affinity bar organizations for a powerful Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month panel. In collaboration with Seattle University’s Roundglass India Center, SABAW followed with a “Lunch and Learn” in June with Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, who has served on the Supreme Court of India, and a fireside chat with the incoming Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant.

SABAW continued to strengthen its community internally and across affinity bar associations with a SABAW picnic and a joint picnic with the Asian Bar Association of Washington. From CLEs to collaborations with the South Asian Bar Association of North America, to an AAPI Judges’ Round Table, SABAW has kept up the spirit of solidarity and collaboration across jurisdictions and organizations.

In 2026, SABAW looks forward to continuing to partner with other organizations to bring timely and impactful programming to members and to the broader community, and to continue to forge pathways for South Asian students and legal professionals to thrive and grow. As all three judges on the panel affirmed, SABAW’s purpose and duty is to create opportunities and remove barriers for the South Asian legal community here in Washington.

Sign up at sabaw.org/join-us to receive updates on SABAW events, including networking and pro bono opportunities, and to become part of this growing organization. To learn more, please email sabawashington@gmail.com.

SABAW would like to thank the sponsors for this year’s gala, which made both this celebration and SABAW’s regular programming possible: Arnold & Porter, Helsell Fetterman, Davis Wright Tremaine, Multani Law Group, Hillis Clark Martin & Petersen, Ballard Spahr, Real Property Law Group, Narwal Injury Law, Foster Garvey, Fisher Philips, VJ Law Firm, Snell & Wilmer, and Watson Immigration Law.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Shashi Vijay, SABAW president, is the founder of VJ LAW FIRM. Vijay is a strategic business partner and corporate attorney. Her practice includes commercial contracts, data privacy agreements and fractional GC services for tech companies and AI startups, risk mitigation strategies, and advising in corporate compliance and business litigation. She can be reached at:

shashi@vjlawfirm.com

Smitha Gundavajhala, SABAW Board member, is an attorney at Helsell Fetterman. Her commercial litigation practice spans employment, real estate and land use, privacy law, and injury law, and she is developing her transactional practice. Before litigation, Gundavajhala worked in health policy advocacy and regulatory compliance. She can be reached at:

sgundavajhala@helsell.com

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