Hannah Cao, Jean Lee and Clara Ohr

Almost every Asian-American female lawyer I know has been told at some point that she's too polite, demure or petite to be effective at her job. “How can anyone see you in a courtroom?” asked one of my ex-boyfriends when I started practicing law. “You're tiny.”

Despite putting up with such nonsense, female lawyers of Asian descent are on a tear—particularly in corporations. Of the 20 Asian-American lawyers now heading the legal departments of Fortune 500 companies, eight are women. And in China, where patriarchy rules and boys are still favored, over 50 percent of general counsel are women, reports legal consulting firm Acritas.

It all might be a momentary high, but it's stirring excitement.

“It's only in the past 18 months that we see a significant increase of APA [Asian Pacific American] women among GCs in the Fortune 500,” says Jean Lee, head of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. “It's the first time that APA women actually are not at the bottom for the top job.”

So why the sudden spike in the number of Asian women in top positions in companies?

“They certainly face the same issues that other non-APA women face in the legal world at large,” says recruiter Selena Loh LaCroix, who was senior counsel at Texas Instruments and now is global leader of the technology and communications practice at consultancy Egon Zehnder.

Indeed, APA women face a unique package of stereotypes: Asian nerd, traditional female, plus a dash of Oriental exoticism. According to a 2017 study by Yale Law School and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, APA women reported more overt racism (32 percent vs. 26 percent) and implicit discrimination (61 percent vs. 53 percent) than APA men. Moreover, they cited family demands and lack of work recognition as key obstacles in their careers.

Yet, some have thrived in corporations in ways they didn't in firms.

“Law firms are one-dimensional,” says Linda Lu, a senior vice president at Nationwide Insurance Co. ”They are about bringing in business, which doesn't play to our strengths.” She says she finds that corporations “are more holistic and take factors like emotional intelligence into consideration.”

Caroline Tsai, the new GC of Western Union, has found working in-house liberating, professionally and personally. A former Jones Day associate, Tsai started her in-house career at Bank of America in 2005 just when the bank went into crisis mode.

“There was not one day where I didn't feel, 'Wow, I don't know the answer,'” she says. But she found that thrilling. “A law firm gives you training, but in-house teaches you leadership.”

Tsai also says she can now push for diversity.

“When I was at Jones Day, I didn't want to be known as an Asian-American lawyer,” she says.

But when she went in-house, she joined the women's affinity group and became a leader in diversity efforts.

“There's more inclusion and talent development in-house,” she says. “And you can make a difference.”

Hannah Cao, the GC of Silk Road Fund, a $40 billion infrastructure fund based in Beijing, finds she's now given more credibility. She's worked at several American firms in New York and China (Coudert Brothers, O'Melveny & Myers, Schulte Roth & Zabel and Steptoe & Johnson), and she says she found the same bias. “You are asked if you're tough enough, smart enough, and if you have a clear mental state,” she says. And once she had kids, Cao says, “Firms questioned my commitment, and when I told them I would not sacrifice my family to be a partner, they basically said I could move on.” (The chair of Silk Road is a woman.)

While these women find in-house work to be a more welcoming environment, none of them is working a cushy job. The difference is they don't feel that their skills or dedication are called into question.

So does that mean the old stereotypes and biases don't exist as much in-house? That's premature, says Clara Ohr, GC of East Coast Energy Group.

“While I think we have made some good advances in recent years, I do not believe that the tide has turned for female APA GCs, or APAs generally,” she says. Asians, she says, are still stereotyped as “hardworking but docile worker bees.”

That said, some APA women don't seem to be constrained by the stereotype.

“I never defined myself as either a dragon lady or a lotus blossom,” Tsai says. “I'm agile. I still think like an immigrant.”