Do Kim

Do Kim is a passionate advocate for the civil rights and human rights of all people. He is a civil rights attorney, specializing in employment discrimination, wage and hour, police misconduct, prisoner abuse, wrongful conviction, and human rights. He was selected as a Rising Star for 2007 and 2012-2014 and a Super Lawyer for 2016-2024 by Law & Politics Magazine.

Do graduated from Harvard College with a joint degree in Afro-American Studies and Sociology and went on to receive his J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he concentrated in Critical Race Studies and the Program in Public Interest Law & Policy. During his law school days, he clerked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, served as Co-Editor-In-Chief of the Asian Pacific American Law Journal, and received the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

After graduating from law school, Do started his legal career clerking for the Hon. Robert M. Takasugi of the federal district court for the Central District of California. He then practiced criminal defense at the Law Office of Mia Yamamoto. Thereafter, he transitioned to Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman, LLP, a civil rights, employment, and human rights law firm, where he worked for five years prior to starting his own law practice, Law Offices of Do Kim, APLC, in the heart of Koreatown.

Do was a member of the Black-Korean Alliance, a coalition of African American and Korean American community leaders dedicated to resolving conflicts between Korean American merchants and African American customers. In the wake of sa-i-gu (Korean for 4-2-9, meaning April 29, 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest), he worked with the Korean American Inter-Agency Council to provide relief efforts to affected Korean American merchants. In 1993, Do founded and directed the Korean American Youth Leadership Program, with the goal of nurturing leadership in Koreatown. Seeing the need to build coalitions with other communities, Do also founded the Multiethnic Youth Leadership Collaborative, which worked with youth in Pico-Union, South Los Angeles, and Koreatown. In 1997, Do organized the Gang Awareness Project, one of the few Asian gang intervention programs in the country and produced a documentary about Koreatown gangs entitled, “Where In 10.”

Aside from his career as an attorney, Do is also co-founder and president of The K.W. Lee Center for Leadership, a nonprofit dedicated to providing Koreatown youth with the tools and opportunities to become future leaders. For the past twenty-five years, he has trained thousands of youth in using community organizing to empower themselves and their community. Additionally, Do has been an instructor for the Los Angeles Unified School District for Multicultural Specific courses and a member of the Asian Pacific American Islander Police Advisory Council to the Mayor of Los Angeles. Do immigrated to Los Angeles at the age of three and has been a life-long resident of Koreatown.