Alum Founded Law Firm Focusing on Injury and Civil Rights.
Alum’s MPH Degree Instilled ‘Principles of Care, Love, and Compassion’
Paul Wong, the first graduate of the JD/MPH dual-degree program, is a civil trial lawyer focusing on personal injury and civil rights. He also serves as board chair for the LA-based UMMA Community Clinic, the first Muslim-American federally qualified health center in the US.
An interest in community health and health law prompted School of Public Health alum Paul Wong (LAW’93, SPH’94) to apply to the MPH program in 1992, while he was a second-year student at the School of Law.

The timing was perfect. Wong was—spoiler alert—accepted to the program, and not long after he earned his JD and began his public health courses, SPH launched its JD/MPH program, making Wong the first recipient of the dual degree. He quickly learned the value of his combined expertise in legal analysis and public health as he served in legal roles in the Division of Community Health at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and the Medicaid Fraud unit at the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, while earning his degrees.
“BU Law and BUSPH emphasized that if you understood the philosophy of law and health policy, you would understand, if not predict, the outcome,” says Wong. It’s an approach that he has applied throughout his career, which, after BU, led him to litigation firms in his home state of California, until he launched his own practice in 2000 as a civil trial lawyer, where he represents a variety of individuals and businesses in personal injury and civil rights cases. “Over the years, I’ve been able to help families heal and receive compensation for their injuries in my civil trial capacity,” he says.
Perhaps most acutely, Wong’s MPH degree has helped him navigate several volunteer roles, including his long-time involvement with the UMMA Community Clinic, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in LA that is the first Muslim-American FQHC in the US. The clinic was founded by students at UCLA and Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science who wanted to provide medical care and wellness to a community in crisis in the years following the Los Angeles riots spurred by the brutal police beating of Rodney King in 1992.
FQHCs are community-based health care providers that receive funds from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to provide primary care services in underserved areas. They must meet a stringent set of requirements, including providing care on a sliding fee scale based on ability to pay and operating under a governing board that includes patients. According to HRSA regulations, FQHCs may be community health centers, migrant health centers, health care for the homeless, and health centers for residents of public housing.
The UMMA Community Clinic, founded on the Islamic principles of service, compassion, human dignity, and social justice, provides primary care to all underserved members of the surrounding community, which is primarily comprised of Latinx and African-American patients. Wong has served on the board of directors for 16 years and as board chair since 2018. With the Board, he tackles numerous issues, including care for the uninsured, expanding healthcare access, food insecurity, mental health care, working with providers, and understanding the metrics of healthcare delivery in a community beset by daily challenges.
As a Chinese-American United Methodist, he also encounters the occasional question as to why he is involved with a CHC grounded in the Islamic faith.
“Americans-Muslims are part of the fabric of our community, but having served on this board, I’ve seen how there is still a lot of fear and suspicion that they are not Americans—that they’re ‘other,’” Wong says. “When people ask me why am I doing this, I say there is no ‘them’—only ‘us.’”
His next major goal—and hopefully in conjunction with completing a doctorate of public health—is to open the country’s first full-fledged America-Muslim medical center. Plans are already underway for a massive center in LA that will offer extended care and a wealth of services for local residents.
“At UMMA, we are not experts parachuting into the community—we are partners with our local community members, helping to empower them to make decisions and choices to support their activities,” Wong stresses. The clinic makes it a priority to hire people who live in the community and offer continuing education and cross-training programs to ensure that staff have the resources they need.
He says that, above all else, his public health knowledge experience reminds him of the importance of exhibiting empathy.
“You can’t convince people if they don’t believe in you and they think you don’t care about them,” Wong says. “In law, you’re taught to argue both sides of the equation, but people don’t do that in the real world. In the real world, you say what you mean and you mean what you say.” Whether implementing policy, arguing a legal case, or providing health resources and care, “getting my public health degree helped me realize that you have to be empathetic, conciliatory, and guided by principles of care, love, and compassion.”
Comments & Discussion
Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.