The Mouth that Pours

When Margaret Wong paused to look back at the year 2000, the view was pleasing. The city's most celebrated immigration attorney had attended the Democratic National Convention as an alternate delegate. The university law schools at Case Western Reserve and Cleveland State had asked her to sit on their boards. She became the first Asian to be inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame.

Wong's home life bloomed as well. Her daughter made the junior-varsity tennis squad. Her son was driving on a learner's permit. Business thrived at husband Kam's pharmacy in Saint Luke's Medical Center. Her 80-year-old mother was still giving orders to drink herbal soup.

Where her practice was concerned, the letter of holiday greetings Wong penned in December 2000 struck a less festive tone. Immigration law, the letter noted, was becoming increasingly complex and difficult. Also, three attorneys had recently bolted the firm. Yet friends and acquaintances were assured that no challenge was too great for Margaret Wong & Associates. "My colleagues, staff members, and I recognize this as an opportunity to regroup and reaffirm our commitment to be the best in the immigration arena," she wrote.

Wong's reputed excellence -- she refers to herself as a wonderful lawyer -- would be dealt a blow two years later, however, when The Plain Dealer published accusations of racism.

The accusations came to light after Kathleen Ehrbar, a paralegal who had been fired, sued Wong, claiming race and age discrimination. In sworn depositions and affidavits, former employees described Wong, who was born in Hong Kong, as a fount of prejudice.

Said Dee Preston, a former secretary: "I believe that Margaret Wong is a racist, and that she prefers to work with Asians over non-Asians, and she prefers white employees over black employees."

Anikó Kálnoki, an attorney formerly associated with the firm: "On numerous occasions, she had indicated that Caucasians are not smart and they are slow; Asians are fast, Asians are smart."

Marian Vasquez, a former paralegal: "Margaret Wong said to me, 'Will you see these clients for me? I don't want to see them; they're Jewish."

Michael Sharon, another attorney and former associate: "[S]he would make statements that were not flattering, about people of Indian ancestry, Arabic clients, African clients, Hispanic clients."

Ehrbar's suit was settled. A $50,000 offer was made and accepted, documents show, although the final agreement is confidential. Today, Wong denies that she is prejudiced. "I never was, and I never will be, and I never am," she says. "I want to help everybody. I was given such a great opportunity. Why shouldn't everybody be?"

The complaints lodged against Wong do not end at cultural insensitivity, however. In September, a former attorney who is blind filed a lawsuit accusing Wong of discrimination based on her disability. The suit alleges that Wong failed to make accommodations for the attorney, Michele Norton. The suit claims further that Wong humiliated Norton, in one instance comparing her to a dog. Wong denies the allegations.

At the least, Wong is sometimes a poor judge of how her words and actions will be received. A survey she sent to fellow immigration attorneys asks their political party affiliation, their income, which colleges their children attend, and whether they've been divorced. A Christmastime memo instructed employees that spending money is not happiness, yet she lives in a $961,000 Shaker Heights home that's equipped with an indoor swimming pool.

Thoughtlessness is not unique among people of success, especially self-made successes. Wong can remember a time when she was a trembling lawyer and not even obscure government agencies would hire her. "Everything I got, I got on my own," she says. But Wong's critics say that her fame and fortune were amassed at others' expense. "She takes advantage of her customers," says Chor-Bishop Bernard Khachan at St. Maron's Maronite Catholic Church in downtown Cleveland.

On the surface, her story is inspiring. Beneath that, a more infuriating image emerges.

---

Margaret Wong was born in 1950. Her father was a publisher of some prominence. Still, for her, a university education in Hong Kong was inaccessible. At age 19, she and a sister, Cecelia, left for America and landed squarely in the middle, at a small Catholic college in Iowa. Margaret pursued a law degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Opportunities for foreign-born women did not abound at the time Wong was licensed to practice. After a few uncertain years, she moved to Cleveland in 1978 and worked at Berger & Kirschenbaum, where personal-injury and Social Security work were the house specialties. Old Man Berger was a yeller. He used to tell Wong she had no balls and would never have balls. She quit after a year.

Unwilling to wait for an enlightened firm to hire her, Wong struck out on her own. She rented an office in the since-demolished Williamson Building for $125 a month. Her desk cost $25. She did a little of everything -- divorce, wills, title transfer, rides to the airport -- for whatever clients she could find.