Ms. Khandwala is a Clinical Teaching Fellow in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic and the Civil Litigation Clinic. She received her J.D. cum laude from Fordham University School of Law in 2004. During law school, Ms. Khandwala distinguished herself as a public interest scholar by working with a variety of organizations including inMotion, Sanctuary for Battered Women’s Legal Services, the ACLU Reproductive Rights Project and Legal Momentum (formerly Now Legal Defense and Education Fund). She was selected as a Stein Public Interest Scholar and a Crowley International Human Rights Scholar. As a Crowley Scholar, Ms. Khandwala participated in a year-long program to investigate corporate social responsibility for violations of social and economic rights in Bolivia, which culminated in a fact-finding mission to Bolivia and the publication of a report titled “No Recourse: Transnational Corporations and the Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Bolivia.” Ms. Khandwala also received the New York Women’s Bar Association Foundation, Inc. Fellowship to work with immigrant women who were victims of domestic violence.  

After graduating law school in 2004, Ms. Khandwala joined the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at U.C. Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco through a fellowship from New Voices, a Ford-funded national leadership development program that helps nonprofit organizations recruit innovative new talent. In this capacity, Ms. Khandwala helped to advance the development of asylum law in the U.S. by engaging in appellate advocacy. Her project involved identifying key cases nationwide that have the potential to set precedent for all refugees seeking protection in the U.S. and that are best addressed through appellate advocacy, and litigating them as co-counsel or as amicus curiae. These efforts frequently had a positive impact on the outcome of individual claims, as well as the overall development of asylum law. Ms. Khandwala also assisted pro bono attorneys and other advocates with cases on appeal, providing them with one-on-one technical assistance, legal resources, and other support. She frequently conducted trainings and presentations for advocates and community members on a range of topics, including gender-based asylum and women’s human rights.  

Ms. Khandwala also played an integral role in developing CGRS’s Refugee and Human Rights Clinic, which was launched at U.C. Hastings in 2005. Ms. Khandwala worked closely with clinic students, leading classroom discussions on topics related to international human rights norms and refugee law and supervising and mentoring them in their clinic projects.

Ms. Khandwala co-authored several CGRS articles published in academic and legal journals, including a piece on the impact of the one-year bar, a statutorily imposed deadline for filing asylum applications. She also contributed to positive coverage of gender asylum issues in other media.