NAJIT's 29th Annual Convention

Conference Keynote Speaker

The Hon. Ida Chen,
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, PA

Ida Chen is a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, serving in the Family Court Division. She was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to the U.S. from Indonesia. Initially appointed by Governor Robert Casey in 1987, she was confirmed by the State Senate in 1988 and subsequently elected to judge in a city-wide political race in 1989. She is the first Asian-American female to be elected a judge in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Currently she presides over civil domestic violence disputes, handling approximately 12,600 matters per year. During the summer of 2006, she worked with Deputy Court Administrator Janet Fasy of the First Judicial District, in collaboration with Quantum (a commercial language service), Javier Aguilar (full time family court interpreter) and Osvaldo Aviles, interpreter program administrator of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to produce translated versions of the "Final Protection Order" in Russian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, and Spanish. Since 1999, she has participated in voluntary training programs with spoken language and sign language interpreters, many of which were conducted on Saturday mornings. In 1994, Chen and her staff issued the "Interpreters' Quick Reference to Abuse Courtroom #3 in Family Court." In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Judge Chen was part of a team that conducted training for judges in Philadelphia and at the statewide Conference of State Trial Judges.

Judge Chen graduated in 1976 from Temple University Beasley School of Law, where she taught as an Adjunct Professor from 1983 to the present. From 1985 to the present, she has been a lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

From 1976 to 1986, she served as a trial attorney with the US Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) where she litigated cases and class actions involving federal employment discrimination laws in federal courts from Massachusetts to West Virginia.
In 1986, she was the first Asian-American to be appointed a Commissioner to serve on the Philadelphia Commission of Human Relations by Mayor W. Wilson Goode. During her first year as Commissioner, she mediated an incident regarding street signs posted in Korean. She worked with the Commission to establish criteria that required human relations workers to speak various languages which led to the hiring of individuals who spoke Russian, Korean, Chinese, Khymer, Laotian and Vietnamese.

After an FBI wiretapping device was found in the Mayor's office, Mayor John F. Street of Philadelphia appointed Judge Chen in December, 2003, to chair an ad hoc Ethics Committee as part of his re-election transition team. The committee's mission was to make immediate recommendations on how to restore confidence in city government. On March 11, 2004, the Ethics Committee of the 21st Century Review Forum published a thirty-page report which made 16 recommendations regarding the new Omnibus Code of Ethics; the creation of a new Board of Ethics; adopting a Handbook of Ethics and Rules for city employees and appointees; revising an Executive Order pertaining to gifts; providing more resources to the Inspector General; new rules regarding financial disclosure forms, city procurement, as it relates to campaign contributions ("Pay to Play") and no-bid contracts; and the advocacy of state-wide legislative reform with respect to campaign financing. In December, 2005, the City Council adopted several of the Committee's recommendations and the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter was amended to create a new Board of Ethics with investigatory and enforcement powers in 2006.

In 2005, Chief Justice Ralph Cappy of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania appointed Judge Chen to chair the Interpreter Services Committee of the Pennsylvania Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial & Ethnic Fairness, which seeks to bring about language access programs for individuals of limited English proficiency and for the deaf and hard of hearing in the courts and administrative agencies throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Although various studies focus on the utilization of interpreters in the court system, in May, 2006, Chen's committee commissioned a first-ever professional survey of administrative agencies (with the active support of Nora Winkelman, Esq., Executive Deputy General Counsel for Legislative Affairs of the Office of the General Counsel to the Governor and the Honorable Pedro Cortes, Secretary of the Commonwealth) on their use of interpreters and translators in conducting administrative hearings. The results of the survey were published in August 2007. During the summer of 2007, under the leadership of president Judge Louis Presenza of Philadelphia's Municipal Court, the committee field tested a "Cue Card" and conducted training with court officers, court criers and judicial aides.

In 2005, Judge Chen collaborated with Melita Jordan, Director of the Bureau of Family Health of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, to initiate and innovative children's health program. Thereafter, Judge Chen worked with the Philadelphia Family Court, under the leadership of Administrative Judge Kevin Dougherty and Supervising Judges, Margaret Murphy and Idee Fox, to design a pilot project with the State Health Department. The objective of the project is to build Family Court's capacity by identifying eligible families (while they are visiting the Family Court regarding legal matters) and provide them with free health insurance for their children, in accordance with the Child Health Insurance Program.

Currently, Chen serves on the following boards: Drexel University, On Lok Senior Citizens Home, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, and has been a co-Chair for the Martin Luther Kind Day of Service for the past few years. In 2007, she served on the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Grant Committee. Previously she served on the following boards: Blacks Educating Blacks About Sexual Health Issues, Action AIDS, Aids Services in the Asian Communities, the William Penn Foundation, the Center for Responsible Funding, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute, the Mid-City YMCA, Hahnermann University Hospital, and the National Constitution Center.

In 1987, Judge Chen co-founded the Asian-American Women's Coalition and at her urging in 1995, they established a scholarship fund to honor Cecilla Moy Yep (her co-founder). Over the years, AAWC has awarded 30 scholarships to outstanding and financially needy Asian-American women.