Faculty: Hina Shah
Hina Shah
Title(s):
Associate Professor of Law
Director, Women's Employment Rights Clinic
School(s):
Law
415-442-6649
Professor Shah has over twenty years of experience in employment litigation working for private union-side law firms and non-profits organizations and substantial appellate experience as a Staff Attorney at the Ninth Circuit. At the Clinic for over a decade, Professor Shah has helped transform the Clinic into a strategic partner with grassroots, community-based worker organizations to enhance their capacity for systemic change. The Clinic has been legal counsel for over 5 years to the California Domestic Workers Coalition, helping expand and protect overtime rights for domestic workers in California. As legal counsel to the Coalition, Professor Shah and her students provided legal and technical expertise to the Coalition, the Legislature and to the Governor’s staff and helped educate worker leaders about the existing complex regulatory structure so they can make informed policy decisions. After securing permanent overtime rights for domestic workers in California, Professor Shah developed a popular Know Your Rights booklet and created Train the Trainers curriculum to empower and educate domestic workers about their new rights.
Professor Shah has long standing expertise in wage and hour law. She has conducted trainings and provided technical assistance and expertise to legal advocates in litigating cases throughout California, has trained state and local enforcement investigators, and has been consulted by the Legislature regarding various wage and hour bills. She was invited by the Ford Foundation to develop and teach comparative labor and employment law to Chinese labor law professors in China. Professor Shah has authored numerous amicus briefs on important legal issues affecting low-wage workers on behalf of statewide low-wage worker advocates. She successfully argued on behalf of amici before the California Supreme Court in Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc., 60 Cal.4 th 833 (2015).
COURSES TAUGHT
RESEARCH INTERESTS & AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
- Clinical Teaching
- Labor and Employment Law
- Low Wage & Immigrant Workers
EDUCATION
- JD, Hastings College of the Law, University of California
- BSW, University of Texas at Austin
PROFESSIONAL & TEACHING EXPERIENCE
- Former director of the Labor/Employment Project at the Asian Law Caucus, Inc.
- Former Member of Board of Directors and Past President, Sweatshop Watch.
- Practice experience at several union-side labor firms.
- Former staff attorney, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
- Helped establish the Eviction Defense Center - Oakland, CA.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Radical Reconstruction: (Re) Embracing Affirmative Action in Private Employment, U.Balt.L.Rev. (forthcoming 2019).
- Understaffed and Overworked: Poor Working Conditions and Quality of Care in Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly, Report for The Coalition For a Fair and Equitable Caregiving Industry (May 2017).
- Notes From the Field: The role of the Lawyer in Grassroots Policy Advocacy, 21 Clinical L. Rev. 393 (2015).
- With Marci Seville. Domestic Worker Organizing: Building a Contemporary Movement for Dignity and Power, 75 Albany Law Review 413 (2012)
- Broadening Low-Wage Workers' Access to Justice: Guaranteeing Unpaid Wages in Targeted Industries, 28 Hofstra Labor & Empl. L. J. 9 (2011)
- With Marci Seville. Complex Employment Issues in Elder Care, The Recorder, 3-2-2011.
- Ethnic and Religious Discrimination, American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law, Equal Employment Opportunity Committee (2002).
- How Anna Won Her Wages: How to File Wage Claims & Know Your Workplace Rights, Multi-lingual Educational Materials for Low-wage Workers, Asian Law Caucus (2001).
- Asian Law Journal Symposium on Labor and Immigration, 6 Asian Law Journal, 217 (1999).
Honors & awards
- Legal Advocate Award – Center for Workers’ Rights”
- 2016 Dignity Rising Champion – California Domestic Worker’s Coalition
- Worker’s Rights Advocate Award – Mujeres Unidas y Activas (presented to the Women’s Employment Rights Clinic)
- Advisor of the Year to GGU Labor and Employment Law Association (LELA) – Student Bar Association
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
- Member, California State Bar