Sameer Ashar

Sameer M. Ashar is Clinical Professor at the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine and co-director of the UC Irvine Immigrant Rights Clinic. He served as the Associate Dean for Clinical Programs at the CUNY School of Law and has also taught at the University of Maryland and NYU School of Law.

Professor Ashar focuses both his clinical practice and scholarship on how law can be used to support racially and economically subordinated communities. He has defended individuals before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Fifth Circuits. He has represented immigrant workers in litigation against exploitative employers in state and federal court, as well as before the National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, and California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Professor Ashar has worked on policy advocacy and community education projects with numerous immigrant organizations including the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, UNITE HERE Local 11, Warehouse Workers Resource Center, Orange County Immigrant Youth United, RAIZ, Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, Domestic Workers United, Andolan Organizing South Asian Workers, New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Families for Freedom, and the Workplace Project.

Professor Ashar has published commentary and articles in Clearinghouse Review, Law and Society Review, Journal of Legal Education, Clinical Law Review, California Law Review and Connecticut Law Review. He serves on the board of the Clinical Law Review.

He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Political Science from Swarthmore College.