Asian American Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern and North African (AAPI / MENA) Women in Legal Academy Workshop
Save the dates for the Fifth Annual Asian American Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern and North African (AAPI / MENA) Women in Legal Academy Workshop. This year, the workshop will be held in the spring, on April 24 – 25, 2026 in beautiful Bristol, Rhode Island and hosted by Roger Williams University School of Law.
Friday, April 24, 2026 Full Workshop Programming
Saturday, April 25, 2026 Workshop Programming until 1:30 PM
This annual workshop is organized with the purpose of building community, supporting and mentoring women aspiring to enter or who are in the legal academy. The workshop will include a space for an exchange of supportive and constructive feedback on incubators and works in progress, exploring shared identities, histories and experiences, and engaging in dialogue about challenges, best practices, development and wellness.
The keynote and plenary lunch will feature Sudha Setty, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Law School Admissions Council ("LSAC") and Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty School and Founder and Director of the Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Penn State Dickenson School of Law. In addition to being distinguished teachers, attorneys and scholars, these two leaders and partners established this conference five years ago. In this fireside chat, they will share their thoughts about how and why they established this conference and community and what they hope for the future. Hosted at the Sailing Center, this oceanside discussion at lunchtime on Friday, April 24 is not one to miss! See below for more information about the biographies and impact of the speakers.
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
Conference registration will be $125 to support our excellent programming and the formal establishment of this organization. Registration will include all programming and meals. Stipends for reduced registration may be available upon written request to nvaryani@rwu.edu
For those who register before December 31, 2025, a discounted registration rate of $100 will be available.
Registration will open shortly. The Early Bird registration fee will expire on December 31, 2025.
The deadline for registration is March 6, 2026.
WORKS IN PROGRESS & INCUBATORS
We invite you to present your work to receive support and valuable feedback from your colleagues in our community. We are holding sessions for Incubators (early-stage projects with 2 – 3 page drafts) as well as Works-in-Progress (full, nearly complete drafts of articles).
If you are interested in receiving feedback, please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words to nvaryani@rwu.edu by March 6, 2026. In your submission, please indicate whether you are proposing an incubator or a work-in-progress. Final drafts of your submission for the conference will need to be submitted by April 3 for review prior to the conference.
SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
If your institution is interested in sponsoring this conference. Sponsorship opportunities include:
Lotus ($2,500) Includes logo on website, full page program advertisement, placement of materials in participant bag, sponsored meal, and conference signage.
Chrysanthemum ($1,000) Includes logo on website, half page program advertisement, placement of materials in participant bag, and conference signage.
Jasmine ($500) Includes logo on website, quarter page program advertisement, and conference signage.
MEET THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Sudha Setty is the president and chief executive officer of LSAC. Prior to this role, she served as dean of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and before that, as dean of Western New England University School of Law. In both of her deanships, Setty focused on building structures to support social justice and public interest lawyering, as well as on increasing access to legal education. While at CUNY Law, she spearheaded a significant expansion of Pipeline to Justice, the law school’s signature access program, and led the founding of the First Impressions Youth Legal Collaborative, a multifaceted program to engage middle school, high school, and college students in engaging with questions of civics, law, and justice.
For many years, Setty has been a leader in coalition-building to advance access and opportunity in leadership roles, starting with pipeline and pathway efforts. As the first South Asian American woman to serve as dean of an ABA-accredited law school, Setty is particularly attuned to the fact that we must collectively do more to support those who have been historically excluded from leadership roles.
Setty is a nationally recognized scholar in national security and comparative civil rights law and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Setty received her bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University and her JD from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She began her legal career at the firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. She recently served on the Deans Steering Committee of the Association of American Law Schools, on the editorial board of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy, and on the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Artificial Intelligence.
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is a nationally respected immigration scholar, law professor, author, and attorney. She joined Penn State Dickinson Law as a Clinical Professor of Law in 2008 and was named Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar in 2013.
In 2023, Professor Wadhia was appointed by President Biden as the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. There she led an office of 150+ people focusing on culture and mission excellence there. Wadhia’s leadership was critical to integrating civil rights and civil liberties across DHS, and advances in artificial intelligence, language access, human rights, combating gender-based violence, and racial equity, among other efforts. Professor Wadhia received the DHS Outstanding Service Medal from the Secretary in 2024 at the end of her tenure.
Professor Wadhia’s scholarship has focused on the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law and policy, and the intersection of immigration, race, and national security. Her work has more than 550 citations in law reviews or publications as well as several federal courts, including the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals. Professor Wadhia has published in Duke Law Journal, Emory Law Journal, Texas Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Latino Law Review, Administrative Law Review, Howard Law Journal, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, University of Colorado Law Review, Cambridge University Press, and Columbia Journal of Race and Law, among others. She is the author of two award-winning academic press books by New York University Press; and co-author of a textbook on Immigration & Nationality Law by Carolina Academic Press.
Professor Wadhia has served as an expert witness, testified before Congress, and authored amicus briefs in her research areas. From 2019-2022, she served as the inaugural editor-in-chief of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Law Journal and, in 2019, served as the Enlund Scholar in Residence at DePaul University School of Law. Professor Wadhia was elected to the American Law Institute in 2021. In 2025, she was appointed as the co-author of the industry-leading immigration treatise, Immigration Law & Procedure, a 22-volume "Bible'' of immigration law that has been cited in over 450 federal court decisions in cases from across the U.S. circuit courts of appeals, federal district courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Wadhia has taught law courses in immigration since 2005 and received the Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 2019. She founded the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC) at Penn State Dickinson Law in 2008. Since then, Professor Wadhia has provided hundreds of students with clinical training in community outreach and education, pro bono legal support, and policy work, many of whom practice immigration law across the United States. CIRC was honored with the Excellence in Legal Advocacy Award in 2017 and Legal Organization of the Year in 2019.
Professor Wadhia’s practice includes building community and helping students reach their highest potential. She received the university-wide W. L. Marr International Faculty Kopp Award in 2023 and the Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award in 2020; Mimi Barash Coppersmith Women in Leadership Award in 2020 from the Centre Foundation and Arnold Addison Award for Town and Gown Relations in 2019 from the Borough of State College. In 2020, she was named a Fastcase 50 Awardee, which honors 50 of "the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders." In 2022, Professor Wadhia received the President’s Commendation and the Michael Maggio Pro Bono Award by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Professor Wadhia has long worked to advance inclusive excellence in the legal academy and beyond. She chaired the law school’s diversity committee for eight years and in 2014, helped to create and institutionalize the Minority Mentor Program at Penn State Law. From 2020-2023, Professor Wadhia served as the law school’s associate dean for diversity, equity & inclusion. During Wadhia’s tenure, she co-chaired the university-wide Student Code of Conduct Task Force, co-led the inaugural workshop for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women entering the legal academy, and led the design of a course on Law and (In)equity.
Professor Wadhia is a first-generation American and lawyer who began her career as an immigration attorney in private practice, where she represented individuals and families in citizenship, employment, family, humanitarian, and removal defense matters. After 9/11, she spent several years in the non-profit setting, drafting legislation, building coalitions with government officials and stakeholders, and developing policy on immigration law and policy reform.
Professor Wadhia holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Indiana University Bloomington.
Check back for workshop agenda and registration details.
Questions | RWU Law Professor Natasha Varyani | nvaryani@rwu.edu