An experienced clinical teacher and litigator, Jayashri Srikantiah is the founding director of the law school’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. Under her direction, students in the clinic have represented scores of immigrants facing deportation, including asylum-seekers, immigrants with prior criminal convictions, immigrant survivors of crime, and undocumented migrants with longstanding ties to the United States. Professor Srikantiah and clinic students have litigated cases in the immigration courts, the federal district courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.  Professor Srikantiah’s litigation successes include challenging the federal government’s immigration detention practices, uncovering the federal government’s use of processes to deport individuals without hearings, and limiting the immigration consequences of prior criminal convictions. In recognition of her work on behalf of immigrants’ rights, California Lawyer magazine named Professor Srikantiah one of its 2014 Attorneys of the Year.

Professor Srikantiah’s research and scholarly work explores the role of administrative discretion in immigration decision-making in various areas, including human trafficking and immigration detention; and the pedagogy of law clinics that combine direct services work with impact litigation and advocacy. Her current research concentrates on developing teaching methods for clinics representing institutional clients, immigration detention, and the immigration consequences of crimes.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004, Professor Srikantiah was the associate legal director of the ACLU of Northern California and a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. Professor Srikantiah has also worked as an associate at the law firm of Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, and was a law clerk to Judge David R. Thompson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.