Discrimination against Asian immigrants in the United States goes back to the country’s founding years, including racist sentiment against the first wave of Chinese immigrants who helped build the U.S. intercoastal railway. Centuries later, fueled in part by a wave of layoffs in the tech industry and geopolitical tensions, discrimination lawsuits by Asian Americans have set off a rapid growth in caseloads for plaintiffs firms, as diversity and inclusion efforts are alleged to have taken a backseat in many Silicon Valley companies.

“Our practice just skyrocketed,” Qiaojing Ella Zheng told NLJ. She is the managing partner of Sanford Heisler Sharp’s San Francisco-based Asian-American litigation and finance practice group.