Kevin Kwak's Blog

For those that are residing in Southern California and desires to gain valuable experience learning international trading in the commerce industry, don’t miss out the 2008 Overseas Korean Traders Association (OKTA) Trade Workshop. It is a three day trade workshop that is being held in Koreatown Los Angeles and the fee is only $80 which includes hotel accommodation, meals, and many programs scheduled for the event.

There are certain criteria to be admitted to the workshop and I believe you must be a Korean-American with a permanent residence or a US citizen (no F1 student visa), proficient in English (maybe Korean too?), last but not least have a true desire to succeed and work diligently as a Korean trader.

The World Federation of Overseas Korean Traders Association was established on April 1981. OKTA’s initial goal was to promote mutual prosperity between Korean traders in the U.S. and Japan with Korea and its trading partners as well as to enhance Korea’s economic profile.
Since its establishment, OKTA has expanded exchanges from Korean traders within the US and Japan to Korean traders globally. In addition, OKTA has expanded its concentration on trade of commodities to the trade of information and services. OKTA has been working across the globe, obtaining trade orders and holding consultations among its participants. Through international commerce, OKTA has and continues to contribute to the economic development and prosperity of Korea, Japan, and the U.S., as well as countless other global economies.
http ://www.oktajr.com/socal/home/

Date: 2008, July 24 (Thu) – July 26 (Sat)
Place: Wilshire Plaza Hotel (3515 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010)
Fees: $80/person
Tel: 323.939.6582
Fax: 323.939.6583
Application Deadline: July 4, 2008
More Information: www.OKTAjr.com & info@OKTAjr.com

When a person is in dire need of professional advice to get out of legal troubles, they would expect to receive quality services in return especially if they hire an attorney in law. A member of the State Bar of California went through a rigorous education, passed a difficult bar exam, and pledged to follow the Rules of Professional Conduct at all times. But like in any industries, there are professionals that could not overcome the temptation of easy money and thus crosses the line jeopardizing their entire career. In news, you read about these professionals that rely on their licenses and degrees to work in a competitive field but due to their greed, their reputation and the career goes down the drain because of a bad move in their part. An easy route to make quick money does not exists unless you factor in illegal and fraudulent activities unless you invest lot of your own capital and loan to start/operate a business that sells a hot commodity.

So going back to the blog title, the State Bar of California introduces proposals and amendments to the practices of law. One recent proposal that came to my interest is titled Online Publication of Notice of Disciplinary Charges (NDC). In the State Bar website, the public general has access to view the license status and disciplinary charges (if any) of a member of a State Bar but an important information is missing.

Unfortunately, although the records and hearings relating to the disciplinary proceeding pending against an attorney in the State Bar Court are public, members of the public currently have extremely limited access to them.

The issue or a lack of information with the Attorney Search feature is that the public general do not have updated information on whether the attorney has a disciplinary proceedings pending against them. Everyone will at least once seek an attorney for legal counsel and when the time comes, you would want to hire the best attorney that your money can buy. No one wants to seek an attorney that have violated the attorney-client relationship. Imagine your privacy and confidential information being misused for unlawful purposes. There was a recent news article in the Korea Times where a group of Korean-American attorneys that practices law in Los Angeles County took advantage of a senior woman by transferring her real property deeds/ownership (located in South Korea) to a newly formed limited liability company (LLC) formed by the attorneys. There will be justice!

The due date to voice your comment is June 30, 2008 and send your e-mail to:
Itzel D. Berrio
The State Bar of California
Office of the Chief Trial Counsel
180 Howard St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-538-2541
415-538-2214 Fax

EDIT: Here is the e-mail response from Itzel Berrio.

The Unique Entrepreneurs’ Competition & Networking Event of the Year
TCVN “8th Annual Fast Pitch Competition”

Monday – May 19, 2008
6:00pm – 9:00pm
Anaheim Marriott
70 West Convention Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Meet, greet, and see – the art of the pitch through the eyes of the Tech Coast Angels, the nation’s largest and most active network of angel investors.

Network with hundreds of investors and entrepreneurs.
Enjoy a sumptuous walk-around dinner and wine.

Register Now @ www.PitchTheAngels.com
Registration

$85 by May 15th
($115 after)

At Fast Pitch you will –
Watch the finalists in the competition pitch a panel of expert judges.
Learn about exciting new startup investment opportunities.
Learn how Tech Coast Angels has funded 142 ventures, investing $94 million coupled with $994 million from co-investors.
Since 2006, two of the Fast Pitch winners have each received multiple funding rounds from TCA.

Scoring System and Judges
Fourteen finalists have been selected from previous Coaching sessions.
Judges are prominent VCs, Angels and Business Executives, who will score funding opportunity and presentation on scale of 1-10
4 Winners: Best Overall; Best Funding Opportunity; Best Presentation; People’s Choice/Audience Pick.
Best Overall – based on the combined score — weighted with 60% for funding opportunity and 40% for presentation.
Best Funding Opportunity – based on who best attracts the investors to take the next step and visit in depth with the entrepreneur.
Best Presentation – based on the best and most effective delivery, the most enthusiastically persuasive, and the most exciting.

Associated with the May 19th all-day event:
Harvard Business School “24th Annual Entrepreneurs Conference”
Win Fun Door Prizes from TCA Companies
Conference Overview

The annual Entrepreneurs Conference is an exceptional opportunity to capitalize on the successful experiences of others in starting, funding, growing, and managing a new business.

Who should attend?
Entrepreneurs, investors, and executives of rapidly growing companies will definitely want to be at this event. If you are contemplating a start-up, looking to accelerate your sales growth, or want to connect with other business owners or investors, this conference is for you.

What will I get out of it?
You can:
* Learn how to get funding for your business,
* Acquire valuable marketing ideas to accelerate your sales growth, and
* Find out what worked and didn’t work from successful entrepreneurs.
http://www.hbsaoc.org/conference/index.htm

What an emotional video. Check out the article and the video.

Hello everybody,

This year’s Southern California Korean church softball competition is being hosted by the 2006 softball champion, Cerritos Mission Church in Fullerton the following month. Our church has been out of the friendly sports competition for awhile but we decided to sign up for fun. After the tournament, we’ll get a better feel of what level we stand.
The 2007 Southern California Korean Church softball competition will consists of 24 Korean churches and fellowships competing in the tournament in a single round elimination. Each team is guaranteed three games in the initial round and playoff advancement thereafter. It will be a sweat-packed full day (8am to 9pm) tournament and spectators are likely to see many grade-A and B performing teams play on this day.

Our church (Family Chapel and Oriental Mission Church “OMC”) is running practice once a week and improvements can be seen every week. Being a newbie softball player, it took me few weeks to learn the technicality, fundamentals, and teamwork to play softball efficiently and to make the sports more enjoyable for everyone. Our team captain, Brian has many years of softball experience and is doing an excellent job in our drills and practices. We had our first scrimmage and we won so our weekly practices are paying off.

Few of our top players will be stepping out of the tournament due to their schedule and will likely be a disadvantage for the team. Nevertheless, if our players concentrate and focus on not making simple errors in every play, we have high hopes to do great!
Look forward to the team photos (will be uploaded if available) after the September softball competition. Thanks for reading.