Director, Women's Employment Rights Clinic
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).