Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor Meera E. Deo, J.D., Ph.D. has been selected as the new Director of the Law School Survey of Student...

Professor Meera E. Deo, J.D., Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary scholar who utilizes empirical methods to interrogate trends in legal education, institutional diversity, and affirmative action. She is Director of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) based at Indiana University and is a Visiting Professor at UC Davis School of Law. Her book, Unequal Profession: Race and Gender in Legal Academia (Stanford University Press, 2019), draws from the first empirical study of law faculty utilizing an intersectional lens to investigate raceXgender challenges and identify solutions to overcome barriers facing traditionally underrepresented faculty. Professor Deo is a co-editor and contributing author for Power, Legal Education, and Law School Cultures, forthcoming with Routledge Press. She has held visiting positions at Berkeley Law, UC Irvine School of Law, and UCLA School of Law.
Professor Deo practiced civil rights law with the ACLU National Legal Department in New York City, where she worked on impact litigation involving privacy and cyberspace law. She was later Staff Attorney for Women’s Health, and Director of the Breast Cancer Legal Project at the California Women’s Law Center, a statewide women’s advocacy nonprofit based in Los Angeles. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship, and numerous University of California grants and awards supported her doctoral dissertation on social capital benefits of membership in law student organizations. Professor Deo is Chair of the AALS Section on Law and the Social Sciences and was an appointee to the California Commission on Access to Justice. She has served as an empirical research consultant to the South Asian Network (SAN) and the ACLU of Southern California.
Professor Deo’s scholarship draws from original mixed-method empirical research to investigate the law student and law faculty experience. She is a regular speaker at national and regional conferences including those organized by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the American Sociological Association (ASA), and the Law & Society Association (LSA). Her interdisciplinary and empirical research on institutional diversity has been published in leading law journals and cited in numerous amicus briefs filed in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Courses include:
Civil Procedure I & II, Law & Society, and Scholarly Legal Writing