By Barbara Zaragoza
California Western School of Law
I came to law school focused on becoming an immigration attorney. However, I knew very little about the field beyond the attorneys I saw on the news. During my first year, I realized our best resource can be our professors. Going to office hours early in the semester and asking questions about immigration law helped me start thinking about how best to plan my career. I asked Professor Pooja Dadhania, Associate Professor of Law, to speak with me and share her knowledge. Professor Dadhania received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and currently teaches the asylum law class at California Western. She has an impressive work history and many publications, but I wanted most to ask about her nonprofit work and her academic research.
Professor Dadhania was an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, where she represented clients with humanitarian immigration claims. She filed asylum applications, T visas for trafficking survivors, U visas for survivors of crime, and petitions under the Violence Against Women Act. She explains, “I also practiced family law because at Legal Aid we found there was a lot of overlap with client needs between immigration and family law. If you’re working with domestic violence survivors on their immigration cases, they might also need a restraining order, or help with a divorce or child custody.”
Currently at California Western, some of Professor Dadhania’s research stems from the cases she worked on as an immigration attorney. For example, her article “Deporting Undesirable Women” published in UC Irvine Law Review (September 2018) arose out of her work at Legal Aid after she noticed the harsh immigration laws against prostitution. “These laws came about in the late 1800s and they have remained in our books ever since. The laws were very gendered, focusing on vilifying sellers of sex with no reciprocal penalties for buyers of sex. Also, there was a race-based motivation behind these laws, viewing Asian women as corruptors of white, American society.”
Professor Dadhania’s research centers on the historical development of immigration law and its impact upon marginalized communities. She notes that academic work can help change policies and even assist attorneys in the courtroom. “I think research can serve as a basis for practitioner arguments. I often explore different types of arguments that people can make when they’re litigating.”
Professor Dadhania encourages students to do their own scholarship while still in law school, such as writing for their law review journals and trying to get their articles published. “It can help you start developing an expertise. Scholarship can signal to employers that this is what you’re interested in. Through the publication you can also help advance the thinking in this area.” She explains that judges read law review articles to get background on a topic. Professor Dadhania herself wrote a student note while in law school, which two courts later cited.
To prepare for a career, Professor Dadhania suggests taking all the immigration law classes offered. “It’s helpful to develop a foundation during law school because it can be a bit overwhelming to read the immigration statutes or regulations without any background.” She also suggests practical courses to develop client interviewing and trial skills. A second language is also helpful to know, such as Spanish.
Students who have an interest in immigration law have many avenues of employment after graduation, including private firms, nonprofit organizations, and the government. Meeting with Professor Dadhania gave me direction in selecting my second- and third-year courses as well as having many ideas for applying to summer internships. As a law school student, the insights of our professors can provide some of the strongest foundations for our future professional careers.