Candidate for Director:
Riane Briones
My name is Riane R. Briones, and I am formally declaring my candidacy for Operations Director for the 2022-2023 FBANC Board. Currently, I am Associate Attorney at Kern Segal & Murray, where I practice in the areas of Civil Litigation and Personal Injury. If elected director on the FBANC board, my goal is to continue to cultivate relationships across the FBANC community and to spread awareness about the numerous opportunities and resources FBANC can and will continue to provide.
I was graciously given the opportunity to join FBANC while I was still a law student. Though I initially joined on a whim, I was able to find a community that led to several invaluable opportunities and connections. As a board member of USF Law’s Pilipino
American Law Society, I co-founded the Bay Area PALS Coalition and facilitated connections with other Filipino law students from law schools across the Bay Area by organizing mixers and other social events. With the PALS Coalition and FBANC, I then helped organize FBANC’s inaugural Komunidad – a conference which aimed to foster the professional development of Filipino law students. When Komunidad transitioned to a virtual format, I contributed to the brainstorming process for panel topics and breakout rooms. In Spring of 2020, I had the honor of receiving the FBANC Foundation Legal Scholarship.
These experiences largely helped aid in my eventual development as an attorney. As a first generation law student, I had little to no idea of how to navigate the beginnings of my legal career. FBANC graciously provided me with resources and mentorship that proved to be invaluable.
There is a Tagalog term, bayanihan, loosely meaning “community spirit”. In my view, to embody bayanihan is to work in unity to achieve a particular goal. As Operations Director, I hope to evoke that same sense of community with FBANC as I experienced it. In this role, I aim to bring more visibility to FBANC’s events and goals to reach every community member and beyond. My goal is to not only showcase our multitude of resources to attorneys and law students, but also to students considering law school and paraprofessionals in the legal community through FBANC’s various social media platforms. In this way, our community can only grow, and with it, so can the support that we hope to cultivate.