Nearly 400 attorneys from all across the United States, Canada and India attended the North American South Asian Bar Association's third annual convention in Atlanta last week. The conference, held at the InterContinental Hotel June 16-17, was on the theme, ?Networking to Influence, Influencing to Network."

Georgetown University's Professor Neal Katyal, who received NASABA's Outstanding Advocacy Award, was the keynote speaker.

Katyal is lead counsel for detainees at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which Katyal argued before the US Supreme Court in March, the constitutionality of military tribunals is being challenged.

Another keynote speaker was Madhu Khatri, the Bangalore-based general counsel of Wipro Technologies.

The opening keynote was delivered by Judge Stanley Birch of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, best know for his decision in the Schiavo mercy killing case.

Other notable speaker included general counsels Teri McClure of UPS, Joaquin Carbonell of Cingular and Javade Chaudhri of Sempra Energy.

Like Katyal and Khatri, other South Asian attorneys are clearly ?influencing the network," the group said in a release. Hoping to extend that influence into the public arena are Shyam Reddy, a corporate lawyer at Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, who is a candidate for Georgia secretary of state; Neera Walsh, an attorney in the cook County, Ill., state attorney's office; Rohit Kirpalani, general counsel at Atlanta-based CompuCredit Corporation; and Monica Desai, a bureau chief at the Federal Communications Commission.

?The NASABA community is strengthened with every year that passes," said NASABA board member Kirtan Patel, pointing to the growing ranks of South Asian lawyers.

Next year's NASABA convention will be held in San Francisco on the theme: ?Bridging Borders."

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