From South Korea to Alabama, Beasley Allen attorney Soo Seok Yang has made the quite the journey to get here. And while Montgomery is now home, through his work, he’s helping clients across the country.
Are you from Montgomery? I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. I served in the Korean Air Force as an intelligence officer at the Osan Air Base. About 14 years ago, I was given a chance to visit the United States for the first time as part of the U.S. Congress and Korea National Assembly Exchange Program in 2006. I was a student at Handong International Law School in Korea, where I received my training on U.S. law and met my wife Doh Ah Kim. Doh Ah and I received an opportunity to intern for the Honorable Justice Tom Parker of the Alabama Supreme Court and that is how we came to Montgomery and became Alabama lawyers in 2008. After receiving my LL.M. degree in intellectual property law at George Washington University Law School in D.C., we followed God’s call back to Montgomery and have lived here since.
What are the focus areas of your legal work? I work in our firm’s Mass Torts section. We represent literally hundreds of thousands of people who were injured by defective pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices.
What first got you interested being an attorney? As a little boy, my mother read me Abraham Lincoln’s story, and I later realized many great people who changed the world and helped others were lawyers. During college, I read a book about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by which I became more interested in human rights issues and being a voice for those who have no voice and went to law school. During law school, I was involved in the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom-commissioned project to research the status of North Korea’s religious freedom and political prisoners’ camps, which taught me how important it is to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job? My job involves constantly being placed in a position to help others when they are going through some of the most difficult times of their lives. Representing a client means becoming his or her voice.
A New Home, An Old Song
“My first childhood dream was to become a musician like Beethoven. I love singing with my children as we sing together from time to time at church, and it has been a true family bonding and growing experience. A while back, I sang “Oh Susanna” at the Alabama State Bar’s Leadership Forum graduation. As a kid growing up in Korea, I learned it in Korean first. At the time, I had no idea where Alabama was and what a banjo was. But now I am living in Alabama! This humbles me to admit that we do not have the ability to fathom what special and unique plans God has stored for each one of us.
