The Inter-Pacific Bar Association or IPBA is an international association of business and commercial lawyers, founded in 1991. Its members consist of residents of the Asia-Pacific region, or lawyers with a strong interest in that region. It brings together lawyers from different backgrounds and legal systems and fosters communication and builds stronger ties between these lawyers and thus their countries.
It was founded in April 1991 at an initial conference in Tokyo attended by 500 lawyers. The association has since swelled to over 2,000 members from 67 countries and jurisdictions, such as Australia, China, Singapore, India, the United States and Japan.
It holds an annual conference (generally in the first week of May), publishes a quarterly magazine and has a number of standing committees on a range of areas of law. In 2007, the Annual Conference was held in Beijing and the opening ceremony in the Great Hall of the People was presided over by Luo Gan, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, who first granted an audience to the then President of IPBA Mr Jim FitzSimons. In 2008, the Annual Conference was held in Los Angeles. The 2009 Conference will be in Manila, followed in 2010 by a conference in Singapore.
Through its IPBA Scholars program the Association brings young lawyers and lawyers from developing countries to its annual conferences and thus helps to ensure the continued development of the legal profession in the region. The IPBA is also both a Funding Supporter and a Regional Supporting Organisation of the AsianLii legal database project.
As part of the organization's commitment to foster the development of the legal profession in the Asia-Pacific, the Council of the IPBA has met (and held an associated seminar with members of the local bar association) in a variety of places, including Santiago, Chile and Colombo, Sri Lanka and in November 2008 the Council will meet in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Two former Presidents, Kunio Hamada and Susan Glazebrook, have gone on to become judges in their respective countries (Japan and New Zealand). Another former President, Dej-Udom Krairit, is the current President of the Law Society of Thailand and Mr Carl Anduri, the 5th President of the IPBA, is now the CEO of the worldwide legal network Lex Mundi. Lee Suet Fern, the 20th President of the IPBA is the wife of Lee Hsien Yang.