Paul W. Lee

Paul W. Lee is a retired partner at the law firm of Goodwin Procter LLP in Boston. Paul had over 35 years of experience advising boards of directors and representing large and small public and privately held companies in business, securities and M&A transactional matters. Since winding down his client practice in 2013, he has concentrated on community and public interest work. 

Paul is a founder and current chair of the steering committee of the Asian Community Fund at the Boston Foundation and the Asian Business Empowerment Council.  He is a recipient of the Boston Business Journal Diversity, Equity and Change Award in 2022 and the 2020 Sojourner Award from the Chinese Historical Society of New England.

Paul has served on the American Bar Association Board of Governors and is a 2007 recipient of the Spirit of Excellence Award from the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity. He is a past member of the ABA Commissions on Racial and Ethnic Diversity, Women in the Profession and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification.  He is a past president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and a founder and first president of the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts. Paul was the first individual to receive the Beacon Award for Diversity and Inclusion from the Boston Bar Association. 

In August 2009 he was named a NAAAP 100 leader by the National Association of Asian American Professionals. Included in the inaugural class of six Asian American leaders were architect/designer Maya Lin, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and playwright David Henry Hwang. He has also received the Good Guys Award from the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus. Paul is past Chair of the Board of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, a national civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C., and in Boston, he is currently Board President for the Asian Community Development Corporation. He also serves on the boards of the Conservation Law Foundation and WGBH. He is a founder and past chair of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission, a past board member of the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence, and was a 2013 Fellow in the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. 

Paul is a graduate of Columbia University (B.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) and received his J.D., cum laude, from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell International Law Journal.