Professor Solangel Maldonado Pays It Forward

Raised by Dominican immigrant parents, Professor Solangel Maldonado built a career shaped by mentors who opened doors. Now, she is opening them for others. 
 

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In her fourth-floor office at Seton Hall Law School, Professor Solangel Maldonado keeps a photograph near her desk. Taken during her first year on the faculty, it captures Maldonado with several fellow women faculty members. Twenty-six years later, it remains a reminder of the people and opportunities that helped shape her path. 

Today, Maldonado, the Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law and associate dean for faculty research and development, is the law school’s only tenured Latina professor. Her career has been defined by hard work and persistence, but also by mentors who recognized her potential, sometimes before she recognized it herself. 

Raised in Washington Heights by Dominican immigrant parents, Maldonado grew up in a family of four daughters. Her father left school at 12 to work on the family farm. Her mother came to the United States on a student visa but could not afford college. The two met in an evening English class and married eight months later. 

When Maldonado’s mother was pregnant with her younger sister, she took a bus down Broadway to St. Luke’s Hospital, across from Columbia University. “That’s a very good school,” she told her young daughter in Spanish. “Only white, rich kids go there.” Maldonado, then about four, answered, “Well, I’m going to go there.” And she did. Maldonado earned undergraduate and law degrees from Columbia, fulfilling what she described as her mother’s dream. 

At Columbia Law School, Professor Carol Sanger invited her to a session for students interested in becoming law professors. “I realized that I had not done the things I needed to do,” Maldonado said. She had not served on law review or published, and she had missed the deadline to apply for federal clerkships. 

Following advice from a career services adviser, Maldonado called the office of Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., then a judicial nominee for the federal bench who had not yet hired a law clerk. She called at 6 p.m. expecting to get a voicemail. Instead, Greenaway answered. Then they discovered they had attended the same elementary school years apart. After interviewing her, Greenaway promised, “If I get confirmed, you have a job.” When he asked why she wanted to clerk, Maldonado said she hoped to become a law professor. “So, I’m a stepping stone?” he chuckled. Judge Greenaway became much more than that. He is now one of Maldonado’s closest supporters.  

His chambers also connected her to Seton Hall Law Professor Wilfredo Caraballo, who later encouraged her to apply when the school needed a family law professor. Maldonado was interested but told him she was not ready. “Opportunity only comes once,” Caraballo responded. She began teaching in January 2001. Although she had studied family law and completed a yearlong clinic, Maldonado had never practiced in the field. “It was baptism by fire,” she said. 

When Maldonado questioned whether she belonged in legal academia during her early years on the faculty, Kathleen Boozang offered support. A member of the committee that interviewed Maldonado for the position, Boozang encouraged her to present a paper in Cuba and later urged her to teach trusts and estates, a course Maldonado had never taken. “You can figure it out,” Boozang told her. Maldonado did—and came to love teaching it. 

Caraballo also helped Maldonado navigate the challenges of teaching family law at a Catholic institution. When a colleague cautioned her against writing about assisted reproduction, she shifted her research toward questions of parenthood, including how the law can separate divorced and unmarried fathers from their children. The work expanded her scholarship on race, adoption and family law. Maldonado later became an adoptive parent herself. 

Nancy Dowd, a series editor, approached Maldonado at a conference and asked whether she had considered writing a book. Dowd guided her through the process, resulting in The Architecture of Desire: How the Law Shapes Interracial Intimacy and Perpetuates Inequality, published by NYU Press in 2024. 

Michael Olivas, a University of Houston Law Center professor who championed Latino representation in legal academia, nominated Maldonado for membership in the American Law Institute (ALI). She later became the first Latina to serve as an associate reporter on an ALI Restatement project. “I’ve been so honored to represent Seton Hall Law and the Latino community,” Maldonado said. “I believe I am Michael Olivas’s legacy.” 

Now, Maldonado is helping open doors for others. In 2022, she helped found Graciela Olivárez Latinas in the Legal Academy, or GO LILA, which supports Latinas pursuing or working in legal education through mentorship, professional preparation and community. 

Before earning tenure, Maldonado wanted to teach Latino critical race theory, or LatCrit, but colleagues advised against it, arguing that critical race theory was “not rigorous.” She understood their concern but taught it anyway. She also built a teaching portfolio that balanced foundational courses—including torts, family law and trusts and estates—with electives such as  race, ethnicity and the law, as well as gender and the law. “I think I struck that balance,” she said. 

The biggest misconception about Latino communities, Maldonado said, “is that we are monolithic.” Latinos differ by race, immigration status and language. “People assume that all Latinos speak Spanish, which I do, but many do not,” she said. 

"Representation matters," Maldonado said, "because students need to see people like themselves leading the classroom." Maldonado, who grew up in what she described as a very modest home in Washington Heights, said her presence allows students from similar backgrounds to see themselves in the profession. “It allows for students to see that they can be anything,” she said. 

For Maldonado, success is not defined only by titles or publications. “To me, this is being able to do something that you love every day, being able to mentor the next generation,” she said. “That is success.”