Movement Lawyering: from the U.S. South to the Global South
November 4, 2025
12:30 pm - 1:15 pm
WCC; 2009 Classroom
Want to learn more about movement lawyering? Join Wasserstein Fellow Azadeh Shahshahani as she speaks about her work in the U.S. South and support for social movements in the Global South as a movement lawyer. Azadeh will delve into the theory of change behind movement lawyering, what movement lawyering looks like in practice, and how to prepare yourself for a career as a movement lawyer during your time in law school.
Lunch provided. Please RSVP below! Open to the HLS community.
If you or an event participant requires disability-related accommodations, please contact HLS Accessibility Services at accessibility@law.harvard.edu two weeks in advance of the event.
Azadeh Shahshahani advances a practice of movement lawyering, focused on confronting state repression and dismantling systems of surveillance, incarceration, and deportation. Azadeh has organized for two decades to protect and defend migrants and Black and Muslim communities from systemic lslamophobia, xenophobia, and anti-Black racism. She also provides support to social justice movements in the Global South. Azadeh is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of the American Association of Jurists. She is the author or editor of several groundbreaking human rights reports as well as law review articles and book chapters focused on movement lawyering, immigrants’ rights, surveillance of Muslim-Americans, and using the international human rights framework as a tool for liberation. Her writings have appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, Time Magazine, Boston Review, Slate, and Los Angeles Times, among others. Azadeh received her JD from the University of Michigan Law School and has a Master’s in Modern Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan.