Social Justice Institute Director
Purvi Shah is the Director of the Social Justice Institute at the Center for Constitutional Rights. For the last decade, Purvi has worked for economic and racial justice at various civil rights, organizing, legal, and policy organizations across the country. In 2006, Purvi launched the Community Justice Project (CJP) at Florida Legal Services, to provide legal, policy and training support to community and worker organizations in Miami. There she gained experience working collaboratively with community organizers to represent tenant unions combating slum conditions in rental housing, public housing residents challenging the destruction of 850 units of public housing, tenants in foreclosed properties challenging illegal bank evictions, and taxi drivers fighting to improve their working conditions.
A former CCR Ella Baker, Purvi has also been engaged in teaching, training and building the next generation of movement lawyers since she graduated from law school. At the CJP, Purvi created and directed the Social Justice Summer (SJS) Program, a 10-week summer institute that trains progressive law students on the theory and practice of community lawyering. From 2007 to 2011, Purvi also served as a clinical law professor at the University of Miami’s School of Law, where she co-directed the Community Lawyering Clinic. Over the years, Purvi has become a regularly featured panelist and trainer on community lawyering, conducting numerous state and national trainings for law students and young lawyers.
Purvi received her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at University of California, Berkeley (2006) and her dual B.S. in Social Policy and Political Science from Northwestern University (2002) Prior to becoming an attorney, Ms. Shah was a community organizer who worked with working-class youth in Miami, students in India, and families of incarcerated youth in California.
Follow Purvi @leftinmiami on Twitter
