Wayne Lee Kim

My journey of becoming a defense attorney began in the Spring of 2002.  I had already had been accepted to law school and was to start at the University of Illinois in the fall.  My friend Aaron Otis and I were coaching inner city kids from the Northside of Chicago.  We had the opportunity to take the kids to a Christian outreach tournament in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago.  One can only imagine, the look on the other teams' faces when they saw our team of hispanic and black high schoolers being coached by a Korean coach and a half-Japanese coach.  

The tournament was a 2-day tournament so we had rented rooms at a motel between day 1 and day 2.  After day 1, I took four of my players to eat and afterwards we were heading back to the motel.  It was around 8 p.m., when a police car flashed its lights and I pulled over.  All four of my players, who were all black, immediately put their hands in the air.  This wasn't the first time I have been pulled over for speeding but I have never put my hands in the air when pulled over for speeding.  I, thinking the kids were joking around, told the kids to put their hands back down.  My kids response, "They are going to make us do it."  I laughed thinking they were joking.  They weren't.  Sure enough, as soon as my kids dropped their hands, the police yelled through their intercom, "Everyone put your hands in the air."  

Here, I was in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago with 4 players in high school returning from a Christian outreach tournament with our hands in the air.  I have never been asked to put my hands in the air before on a traffic stop and never have I been asked since.  

The first thing that the officer said to me was, "Why did I have to chase you for 4 miles?"  I responded that I pulled over as soon as I saw  his lights.  His response, "You saw me 4 miles ago and you started to accelerate and I had to chase you down."  My response was, "Don't you think if I saw you, I would have slowed down and if I was really running from you, why would I have stopped immediately when your lights came on."  

Meanwhile, the other officer was hassling my kids for driver's licenses.  None of the kids were even 16 years old and none of them had licenses.  None of that information, stopped the officer from harassing my kids.  As one might guess, the information that I was transporting the kids from a local Christian outreach tournament meant little to the officers.  

The lessons I learned that day will stay with me as I practice law.  It is what drove me to go into Criminal Defense.  It is what drives me today.  And yes, as you can probably guess, I did get a speeding ticket that night.