Jeena is an Associate Professor of Law at the CUNY School of Law, specializing in constitutional law, international law, and critical race theory. She is a prominent advocate of movement lawyering, a practice that prioritizes grassroots community organizing and collective power-building over traditional, top-down litigation strategies. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Drew University and her Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law.
Her academic and litigation career centers on systemic oppression, international economic law, and human rights. Before joining CUNY’s faculty in 2018, she was a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor at Rutgers Law School—where she directed the International Human Rights Clinic—and an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. Her international human rights fieldwork includes managing post-earthquake housing displacement cases with the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti and collaborating with the Dalit rights organization Navsarjan to counter caste-based discrimination in India.
Her recent scholarly contributions explore the intersecting dynamics of law and state power. Shah’s published articles examine the systemic architecture of unilateral economic sanctions through a critical lens, while her public-facing commentary investigates how federal anti-corruption and anti-drug policies are utilized as mechanisms for broader geopolitical control. She also co-founded the Movement Lawyering Boot Camp to train advocates in supporting community-led justice campaigns.