Shefali Milczarek-Desai

Shefali Milczarek-Desai (@Shefalimdesai) is Associate Professor of Law and Co-Chair of the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. She is the recipient of the College of Law’s Distinguished Public Service Scholar Award and a Sustainable Economies Law Center Fellow. 

Professor Desai teaches employment and labor law courses, torts, and seminars on emerging issues at the intersection of migration and labor. Her current scholarship employs critical legal frameworks to analyze immigrant and migrant (“im/migrant”) workers’ access to paid sick leave, elevate the voices of im/migrant women long-term care aides based on original, qualitative research, examine the potential of im/migrant, worker-owned, cooperative business entities, and scrutinize the use of immigration status evidence in tort cases for future lost damages. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in The California Law Review, The Columbia Human Rights Law Review, The UCLA Women’s Law Journal, The Arizona State Law Journal, and The Journal of Tort Law, among others. Professor Desai also engages in creative projects such as the award-winning documentary film, Soledad. 

Previously, Professor Desai directed the Workers’ Rights Clinic and instructed students in client-centered and cross-cultural lawyering through representation of low-wage im/migrant workers throughout Arizona’s borderlands. She and her students worked on cases resulting in published decisions in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Arizona District Court upholding the rights of asylum seekers and im/migrant workers. Professor Desai also has created, launched and taught in-person and online immigration courses in the College of Law’s undergraduate law, master’s in legal studies, and foreign diplomat training programs. 

Professor Desai’s clinical and online coursework reflects collaborations with Harvard Law School’s Labor and WorkLife Program, Northern Arizona University’s Center for Health Equity Research’s Immigrant Research, Practice and Policy Program, the Mexican Consulate, and the Tucson Immigrant Workers’ Cooperative Network. She regularly speaks and presents on issues affecting im/migrants including for the American Association of Law Schools, the American Public Health Association, the American Society on Aging, the Wisconsin International Law Journal, the American Constitution Society, the State Bar of Arizona, the Arizona Women Lawyer’s Association, and the University of Arizona. 

Prior to teaching, Professor Desai assisted in litigating Flores v. Arizona, a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning the rights of English Language Learners in Arizona public schools, practiced at the DeConcini McDonald law firm where she was elected shareholder, and clerked for Vice-Chief Justice Ruth V. McGregor at the Arizona Supreme Court. She is a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist, a Notre Dame Law School Feminist Jurisprudence award winner, and has published numerous articles and essays as well as a book manuscript selected as a finalist in an international competition. Her favorite pastimes include hiking, reading, and being with her family.