About Yangkyoung Lee

Ms. Persistence is Her Nick Name
One important quality of a good lawyer is persistence. Persistence will get the clients the best result that they deserve. One example of Ms. Lee’s persistence is her Devils Lake story she wrote for the Herald, which took three months. The story that brought the incompetence and lies of the state government officials to light was not easy to get published to say the least.
No Backing Down When She Believes A Wrong Has Been Made, Even When Governor is Involved
The story involved a water issue that had plagued the local farmers at least a couple of decades. As a young reporter and an outsider from South Korea, Ms. Lee faced many challenges to get the story published. Not only did she face strong resistance from the governor who tried to cut off the interview when faced with tough questions, but also she had to deal with the same level of, or even stronger resistance from her newsroom. After three months of investigation, and interviewing various players in the project, Ms. Lee finally got her story published. It happened only after several attempts by her editor to derail the publication. Many people said, “Why?,” “Why are you doing this?” “What if the governor stepped down?” Ms. Lee persisted because she believed that a wrong has occurred, and the truth should come out. Her story revealed that the government wasted $23 million of the tax payers’ money on a project that they knew from the beginning would not do anything.

Persuading the Most Unpersuadable is One of Her Skills
After her editor’s attempt to water down the story, Ms. Lee did not give up. She requested a face-to-face meeting with the publisher. After grilling her for half an hour, the publisher who was a friend of the governor approved her story. Not only that, the publisher wrote an editorial in support of her story, praising Ms. Lee’s accomplishment of something that others had failed for decades. By the time the story was headlined on a Sunday edition in 2007, Ms. Lee, a total stranger to engineering, became an expert on engineering numbers related to the project because the story revolved around engineering numbers.

Languages Spoken

• English
• Korean