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Xinyu Hu: The Chinese Lawyer Who Spoke at the University of Washington School of Law Commencement

By Xiao Yuan (小元)
Seattle Chinese Monthly Magazine · June 2026 · Pages 29–31
English translation of the original Chinese profile reproduced above.

At the University of Washington School of Law’s 2026 commencement ceremony, the spotlight illuminated five speakers. Among them, alongside Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, a young Chinese woman stood out. She was the only student speaking on behalf of the law school’s master’s graduates that day, and the only international student from China to take the podium. Her name is Xinyu Hu, a young lawyer originally from Hunan who built her career and developed professionally in Shenzhen. She had just earned her master’s degree from the University of Washington School of Law. Despite her youthful appearance, she already had years of experience in international business law and legal services for cross-border supply chains. She had long supported Chinese companies expanding overseas, providing international legal assistance to major manufacturers, logistics businesses, and cross-border trade projects, with a focus on international business law and cross-border compliance.

For many people, a commencement speech is a brief, shining moment in their academic lives. For Xinyu, however, standing at the center of the stage and addressing the assembled students and faculty carried a significance far beyond a five-minute speech. It marked not only the culmination of a year of study and growth in the United States, but also a high point shaped by countless choices, sustained effort, and repeated steps beyond her own limits.

Those who truly know Xinyu understand that such moments do not happen by chance. They are the result of steady, deliberate work. Her habit of setting ever higher goals and moving beyond her comfort zone developed during years of living and working in Shenzhen. A city that encourages hard work and embraces innovation, Shenzhen helped shape her enthusiasm for her profession and her continuing desire for personal growth. To her, growth has never meant simply achieving a goal; it means reaching one goal and then pursuing the next, higher one. She has never been someone who relies on luck alone to find opportunities. Instead, she prepares before opportunities arrive and is willing to devote extraordinary patience and effort to a goal. As early as her first term at the University of Washington School of Law, she had already formed a clear and determined ambition: one day, she wanted to stand on the commencement stage and speak for all the master’s graduates, giving voice in particular to Chinese students and the Chinese legal community.

The idea might have sounded bold, even unrealistic, but Xinyu did not see it as impossible. Once she decides that something is worth pursuing, she quietly begins preparing. Many people saw her composed, confident performance: speaking entirely without notes and accurately recalling her classmates’ names. Few knew that those five minutes were backed by a year of preparation, more than a dozen revisions to the speech, and hundreds of exacting rounds of reading aloud and memorization. She wanted her remarks to be sincere, complete, and powerful. She did not simply want to deliver a speech; she wanted that stage to hold a lasting memory for her and her classmates.

What particularly moved many listeners was that she did not treat the occasion solely as her own moment of glory. In her speech, she made a point of naming many classmates, including fellow Chinese students and friends from Europe and the United States. Since her classmates had elected her, she believed that the honor belonged to the whole group, not to her alone. She wanted everyone who had helped and supported her to be seen and remembered in that moment. In speaking their names from the podium, she conveyed more than gratitude: she created a deeply sincere emotional connection.

That ability to connect is precisely what makes Xinyu distinctive.

People often assume that a student selected to speak at commencement must have the highest grades and fit the familiar image of an academic high achiever. Xinyu does not fit that stereotype. She freely acknowledges that her GPA was not among the very highest and that she was not someone who devoted all her energy to academics. Compared with a purely academic student, she is more of an all-rounder: a skilled communicator with a strong ability to express herself, build relationships quickly, and bring people and resources together. Whether in China or the United States, she enjoys creating opportunities for collaboration, connecting businesses, lawyers, scholars, and friends from different countries, and finding ways to work together and create new value through conversation. She gets along well with Chinese students and has also built deep friendships with classmates from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Her strengths in cross-cultural communication, organization, coordination, and bringing resources together ultimately became some of her most distinctive advantages.

These abilities did not suddenly emerge after she arrived in the United States. They were gradually refined throughout her life.

Xinyu was born in Zhuzhou, Hunan, and spent many years living in Changsha. She carries qualities often associated with women from Hunan: warmth, directness, determination, and a refusal to give up. Her life was never a single, straight path. Unlike many who enter the legal profession through a conventional sequence of steps, Xinyu spent much of her youth closely connected to the stage. She loved singing and performing. In high school, she even dreamed of becoming a singer or actress and, for a time, pursued that ambition as a student preparing for admission to an arts program.

One of life’s surprises, however, is how rarely it follows a predetermined route. An unexpected setback during the arts entrance examinations prevented her from entering her preferred arts institution. At that point, only two months remained before the national college entrance examination, and the reality she faced was daunting. Many people in that position might have compromised or become overwhelmed by anxiety and uncertainty. Xinyu made an exceptionally bold decision: to abandon the arts admissions route and make a fresh push in her academic subjects.

It was an almost impossible challenge.

Yet she did it.

Over those two short months, she pushed herself to the limit to catch up academically and ultimately gained admission to a university law program. The move from the stage to legal studies, and from an artistic dream to a legal career, might appear to have been a dramatic turn. It did not, however, diminish her love of performing. On the contrary, her experiences on stage remained part of her life in another form and would later play an unexpectedly important role.

While she was at university, the well-known singing competition Super Girl returned after a gap of several years. Her roommate saw the news and excitedly urged her to enter. Auditions in Changsha had already ended, and only the Guangxi region was still accepting contestants. Half playfully and half out of curiosity, Xinyu signed up in Guangxi, thinking that since she had never been there, it could at least be a pleasant trip.

Unexpectedly, that “trip” lasted more than a month.

She advanced through the auditions, preliminary rounds, and subsequent rounds, eventually reaching the top 20 in the Guangxi region. The lights, music, applause, and the nervous excitement of facing the cameras gave her a real taste of the stage’s appeal. That experience became a particularly treasured part of her life. Alongside competing in a major show, she later tried her hand at creating online content, won awards from some platforms, walked red carpets, and experienced life as something of a “minor celebrity.”

Many people might see little connection between these experiences and a legal career. Xinyu, however, understands that they share something fundamental.

She believes the greatest benefit of her stage training was learning how to remain composed in any setting. Whether addressing judges, clients, or colleagues, she can stay steady and quickly assume the role the situation requires. She once discussed this with a law professor, whose observation stayed with her: in a sense, everyone needs to be an actor. A professor must teach even when nervous; a lawyer must argue a client’s case even when afraid. Xinyu deeply agrees.

To her, singers, actors, and lawyers may appear to belong to entirely different professions, but all must stand on their own stage and perform at their best. Each requires substantial confidence and command of the situation.

That confidence becomes particularly evident when she enters a courtroom. Before going to the United States for her master’s degree in law, Xinyu had already gained extensive experience in China handling legal matters with an international dimension. Her work had long focused on international trade, cross-border logistics, and legal services for businesses expanding internationally. She had worked on overseas investments by Chinese companies, international supply chains, cross-border trade compliance, and international commercial disputes. Supporting Chinese businesses entering markets in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, she developed an interdisciplinary professional background combining law, business, and international trade.

In everyday life, Xinyu is approachable, humorous, and even endearingly playful. Once she enters a courtroom, however, she seems to switch into a different mode. She once handled a complex cross-border dispute involving a client’s shipment that had been detained in the United States because of a carrier’s improper conduct. The parties fiercely contested the value of the goods and the allocation of responsibility. Having previously worked in a related business, she was deeply familiar with the workings of international logistics, trade, and freight transportation. This gave her a particularly precise understanding of the issues at the heart of the case.

During the hearing, opposing counsel repeatedly tried to challenge her arguments, but Xinyu responded quickly, logically, and forcefully. Recalling the hearing later, she described feeling as though a fire were burning behind her: for every response from the other side, she could swiftly assemble ten stronger counterarguments. Ultimately, under pressure from the judge and her vigorous advocacy, opposing counsel was left with little to say, and Xinyu won the case. Today, she remains focused on international business law, hoping to help more Chinese companies expand globally safely and efficiently and to build channels for communication and cooperation between different legal systems.

Interestingly, once she stepped out of the courtroom, she immediately returned to her usual gentle, slightly playful self. She even felt a little embarrassed about having pressed the other side so hard.

That contrast is one of the most compelling things about Xinyu.

She combines sharpness and strength in the courtroom with warmth and sincerity in everyday life. She can analyze a problem calmly and rationally through legal reasoning, then turn to social media to teach her American classmates the Changsha dialect and laughingly share amusing moments of cultural exchange.

After moving to Seattle, she was particularly struck by the city’s friendliness and inclusiveness. Rather than feeling especially anxious in an unfamiliar environment, she quickly experienced the city’s warmth through a succession of small encounters. There was the Mexican restaurant owner who welcomed her with a note and a complimentary chicken wrap when she first arrived late at night; the coffee shop employee who smiled and gave her a free coffee when her bank card payment failed; and the neighbor who gave her a sofa. These seemingly small gestures accumulated into her earliest and most lasting impression of Seattle.

She began to fall in love with the city.

She loves its natural surroundings and the kindness people show one another. She also loves its character as a city that combines tranquil scenery with commercial energy.

Xinyu has always admired legal professionals who bring together real expertise, critical thinking, and a sense of social responsibility. Among those she admires, Luo Xiang holds a special place. She appreciated him long before he became a widely known public voice on the law. In her view, what makes him exceptional is not only his professional ability, but also his almost idealistic faith in the law. While preparing for the legal professional qualification examination, she attended his classes in person. She even carried a stool to the very front so she could sit closer to the teacher she admired, and spoke with him face to face on several occasions. She has always valued people with knowledge and conviction. She believes that legal professionals must not only know the law but also understand the justice and values behind it. She still often recommends Luo Xiang’s books Justice in a Circle (《圆圈正义》) and The Details of the Rule of Law (《法治的细节》) to friends, believing that they help readers understand what the rule of law truly means.

Xinyu’s deepest confidence, however, has always come from her family. Both of her parents work in law and influenced her from childhood through their rigorous approach. Her father places particular emphasis on legal reasoning: whenever they discuss a case, he first asks her to clarify the legal relationships, the relevant elements, and the issues in dispute. Her mother sets equally high standards for statutory provisions and details. Growing up in that environment helped Xinyu develop a solid foundation in legal thinking at an early age. Even more important than professional skills, however, was the outlook on life her parents gave her. They supported her while allowing her ample freedom to grow in her own way. Whether she was leaving Changsha on her own as a teenager to study music in Guangzhou, switching to law, or traveling to the United States for further study, they never planned her life for her. Instead, they told her that their abilities as parents were limited: they would do their best to lift her as high as they could, but she would have to walk the rest of the road herself.

Her older cousin also played an extremely important role as she grew up. To Xinyu, he has been a guide in life as well as a partner and supporter in her career. He encountered the business world and a broader international outlook before she did, and offered encouragement, advice, and practical support at many critical moments. Often, the opportunities he gave her to see the world helped her realize that life need not be confined to the city and path immediately before her; she could bravely step onto a larger stage. These quiet but powerful forms of family support have been among the most important emotional foundations of her growth.

Her parents’ first trip abroad was to attend her commencement ceremony at the University of Washington School of Law. She knows that, within their limited financial means, they prioritized giving their child opportunities to see the world. She therefore especially values everything she has today and hopes to show her parents more of the world in the future. At the end of the interview, when asked what one message she would most like to offer the audience, she did not say much. Calmly and sincerely, she said: “I hope that life keeps getting better for all Chinese people around the world.”

From a young woman in Changsha to a professional woman in Shenzhen; from an arts student pursuing a dream of the stage to an international lawyer helping Chinese businesses enter global markets; from Chinese courtrooms to American classrooms and then the commencement podium at the University of Washington School of Law, Xinyu has never stopped moving forward. To many, women in Shenzhen embody openness, determination, and an international outlook, along with a continuing commitment to learning and growth. Xinyu reflects precisely those qualities. She has always believed that professional ability determines how far a person can go, while the capacity for continued growth determines how long they can keep going. Wherever she may live or whatever stage she may stand on in the future, she hopes to keep using the law to connect China with the world. Running through it all are her dedication to growth, her belief in effort, and her confidence in the future. The applause on stage, exchanges in the courtroom, learning in the classroom, and warmth and kindness encountered abroad have together shaped the confident, incisive, warm, and vibrant Chinese woman she is today.

And Xinyu’s story is clearly only just beginning.