The Real Lawyer: Shruti Rana (Part 2)

 In this episode, Shruti Rana shares her journey from practicing law to academia, inspired by a pro bono immigration case. She discusses her passion for teaching, connecting students’ interests to real-world legal issues, and fostering intellectual and personal growth through transformative education. 

Transcript

Joyce Sophia Xu (00:03.574)
Welcome back to the Real Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Joy Sophia Hsu, and you're listening to part two of my conversation with Shudi Rana, legal scholar, law school leader, and human rights advocate. In this episode, you'll hear about what inspired Shudi to become a law professor, some of the amazing mentors and teachers she had along the way, and how she tries to pay it forward to her students. I hope you enjoy.

Joyce Sophia Xu (00:37.006)
So Shruti, you had talked about your experience.

Joyce Sophia Xu (00:43.618)
at the United Nations. Then after that, you shifted to legal academia, starting first as associate professor of law at the University of Maryland Law School. So tell us, how did that come about? So I was thinking about what I wanted to do, and I loved research and writing so much, and I loved thinking about issues. And I'd had this really interesting experience when

I was working at Williams and Connolly. I ended up working on a pro bono case where we drafted a cert petition for the Supreme Court. And ultimately we, the government was ordered to respond to our cert petition, which is pretty unusual. I think at that point in time, maybe, you know, of the hundreds of cert petitions that people file, I think something like 15 or 16 % to get to the stage of where they.

the court asks the other party to respond because they want to know what's going on. And what ultimately happened is that the government, were, so the case involved the Department of Justice and it was on an immigration and asylum issue. And the Department of Justice ended up preemptively changing the policy that we were challenging. And so the court, the case was mooted out because what we were challenging, they went ahead and changed. And that was again,

an incredible learning experience, right? Because we had found this issue. you think it was a political move because of the strength of the challenge that the government decided? That's my hope, right? mean, they agreed actually that the problems that we had raised, were challenging the streamlining, among other things, were challenging the streamlining decisions that the Department of Justice was making in immigration cases.

And that was something I was really interested in. And that case was kind of a small part. I looked at one aspect of the issue, and I just really wanted to learn more and continue diving into this issue. Because from my perspective, what I saw was that the Department of Justice, when we were in law school and doing our work, we learned all about due process and transparency and accountability.

Joyce Sophia Xu (03:02.038)
and why it matters for judges to explain what their decisions are, right? Whether or not you agree with the outcome of the decision, whether or not you win or lose the case, a judge explaining what they're doing and how they came to their conclusion and the laws they're implying is really important. And the streamlining decisions, the streamlining policies were a policy that had been put in place that basically allowed judges to, or like immigration judges within the Department of Justice,

to decide on immigration cases without providing any reasons at all. And they could do an affirmance without opinion. So if they wanted to affirm a deportation order, the streamlining was meant to make their jobs easier and like make cases, basically have cases go through the system much quicker. then it's much more arbitrary. I mean, we just have no idea what they were doing. And the judges had no, they didn't have to explain anything they were doing. And it was very skewed towards deportation.

It was a deportation order. You were allowed to affirm without opinion. If you wanted to overturn it, you had to write a whole opinion. You had to do something. You had to provide your reasons. And it just seemed to me there was all these due process and transparency and accountability issues. And so I really wanted to research more about that. And I'd seen some really interesting immigration cases when I was clerking in the Ninth Circuit. So I knew that.

there were a lot of cases coming in. I knew how much time and energy the Ninth Circuit judges spent on every case that came before them, right? And how carefully they thought about their decisions and opinions and even unpublished decisions they were very careful about and put a lot of energy and effort into it. And, you know, there were some data showing things like the volume of affirmances without opinions that were coming out of the Department of Justice were such that

the only way that volume was possible is if judges were spending minutes on a case, like less than 15 or 10 minutes. And these are incredibly complex cases. You can't even read like the first couple of pages of it in 10 or 15 minutes. I mean, you know what cases are like, you you can spend hours, you can and should spend hours just reading the files and then after that, right. And then after that, you want to think about the issues and the legal analysis and all of that. So was really interested in that. So I ended up

Joyce Sophia Xu (05:21.292)
starting to write a paper, a law review article about this issue. And I got really excited about the process of researching this problem, trying to think about solutions, trying to work out the legal analysis. And that meant I had a law review article that I could go on the law professor market with. And I thought, you know, this sounds like a really interesting job to be a law professor. I could learn and teach about international law.

And I could find these really interesting issues and try and figure out ways to address them or ways to understand the law better or ways to explain the law to the people involved better. And so that was why I decided to apply for law professor positions. And then I ended up getting a job. that was really exciting. That's amazing. I mean, when I was listening to you talking about that case, I was just thinking, wow, you know, we

We have no idea just kind of going about our daily lives that there are people like you who are really, and everyone who worked on that case, really kind of heroes behind the scenes, you know, making an impact on government policies that God knows how many hundreds of thousands people's lives get impacted by. It makes me have a greater appreciation for

the connection between the legal process and also legal academia. So I'd love to hear more about what that journey has been like. I think that what you mentioned about the impact is really important to me. I mean, I spent so much time in my career learning how to be a lawyer and learning the basics. And over time, it was, it's over time that you see the different ways that you can make an impact. Right. And, you know, I think what you said actually was an important transition in my life. I don't know that I,

thought about it in that way at that time. But when I was working at law firms, and even a little bit at the UN, and when I was clerking, you're working on individual cases. There's a plaintiff and a defendant, or there's different parties, and there's a specific problem and a set of issues. And the decision in that case is affecting those people, right, who are involved in that particular case. There's a lot of routine cases, there's a lot of things that...

Joyce Sophia Xu (07:44.942)
The problem is a complex one, but you solve it, but the legal issues aren't as complex, that kind of thing. And I felt that by looking at issues in a broader way and thinking about how to change the law or how to address a problem in the law or how the law was working and how it could work better, that was an opportunity to have a broader impact. So beyond one particular case to, as you said, think about how can we change policy or how can we change the way that

look at an issue or how can we change or challenge something that's going on in a way that really makes a difference, like a positive difference for many people at once. And so that's what I find really exciting about the issues that I get to research and write about, right? It's thinking about how do you address this issue? How can we move the ball forward? How can we do something about this? And at the same time, being a law professor is this really incredible

you have a really interesting role in the development of law students, right? And in general, and that's one of the most exciting parts, I think, of being a part of academia is being able to work with students and be a part of their process where they're coming in and they're excited and they want to learn and then you see them learn and then you kind of send them off into the world and you see them do these really interesting things. And so you have, I think,

What I find tremendously fulfilling is being in the classroom and seeing those light bulb moments where you see that someone, know, something clicks and they're like, okay, now I understand this. Or you see like what we were talking about, that somebody says, this is the issue that I want to work on, or this is something I care really deeply about and I want to learn more about and I want to do something about it.

And so it's, it's this really interesting contrast between like you're working on these issues, researching, writing about them, trying to change like an area of the law. And then you have these deeply personal moments, right? Where you're a part of a student's learning process and their career path and their journey. And that is really exciting. think. What courses did you teach when you first got started? Were they clinics or part of the general curriculum? Yeah, I've taught.

Joyce Sophia Xu (10:04.398)
1L classes, seminars, I taught a clinic for two years, and then I've taught practicum classes. So I've done a lot of different things. Yeah. And large classes too. So my 1L course that I always taught was contracts. yeah, and I just really liked it when I was in law school. I did too. And I still do. And I thought it was like an interesting insight into the business world. And then I

also have taught a range of international law related classes. So everything from the basic international law courses to like a practicum where I took students to the UN and they were able to be a part of the reporting process and worked with a nonprofit organization on a report about rural women in Kenya. And I'm to think what else I've, yeah, I've taught some classes on international business. So both public and private international law.

What would you say what your teaching style is like? How do you approach these classes? What's your secret for getting the students interested and engaged? So this is something I had to learn over time and I spent a lot of time and effort learning about teaching methods and what's most effective. And I think again, what's most effective is trying to figure out

what students care about and connecting whatever you're doing in the classroom to what matters to them, because then they never forget it. And then they're excited and engaged and energized. And it can be anything. It can be that a student who wants to be a better legal writer or who's interested in a particular career or a student who's trying to understand legal experiences that they saw their families or communities going through, right? Whatever it is that...

that they came to law school thinking about. There's always a way to connect it. And I think that the law is just also so intellectually interesting that there's so many ways. I think what students find boring is sort of a superficial or like a repetition of whatever's in the textbook, right? Because they can read it themselves. And what's interesting to...

Joyce Sophia Xu (12:22.038)
students and I think a big part of the learning process is trying to understand why and how, right? So the judge might have said this, but how does that relate to the facts? And why would they look at the facts differently than you? Why are they, what does this outcome mean? What's going on behind the scenes? How is this working? What does this tell you about the process? What are all the things that went into this? And as a law student, you're just learning all these things. And so a lot of these things seem like sort of hidden processes that you don't understand.

So kind of explaining how these things work, most students are really interested in. That's why they're there in law school, right? They can read the outcome of a case on their own. They want to know how it came to be and why. if you were going to, if that case went on an appeal and you had to argue that, what would you do and why, right? Things like that. It sounds like what's really important is for there to be a dynamic dialogue between the teacher and the student.

It's important for the law professor to pay attention to what the student cares about and to find that personal hook and to engage the student in thinking about the case law, the policies in a broader context, and at the same time through a more personal and relatable lens.

Well, Shuli, I truly appreciate the enthusiasm that you're bringing to teaching. Tell us about some of those light bulb moments that you mentioned earlier that have been so meaningful and so rewarding to you. Well, I guess I'll start with myself and then maybe my students. So I think we were talking about kind of transformative experiences and things that have been important in your careers. And again, I think it's easier to make sense of them looking backwards than it is maybe in the moment.

But when I started my legal career, I had these two really amazing opportunities to work with judges who were just like these giants of the law and amazing people. So when I was in law school, I externed for Judge Jack Weinstein. And then as I was saying, after law school, I clerked for Judge Browning on the Ninth Circuit. they were, you know, when I first started working for both of them,

Joyce Sophia Xu (14:37.33)
I was very intimidated, right? There were these famous judges who had these long distinguished careers and I was just learning about the law and barely, I don't even know if I knew what I was doing. then you're working on cases that have a huge impact on somebody's life. mean, there are things like death penalty cases. There's things like, I mean, anything that you can think of or someone's business that's in trouble or there's a dispute. And so it's a really...

kind of scary experience to think you're working on something so important and you're still learning. And I thought both of those judges were incredibly kind, thoughtful, gracious people. And I had very little in common with them. know, like Judge Weinstein was in the military and, you know, he had this long distinguished career. what I, you know, so I'll always remember how incredibly thought

and gracious they were and how they really cared about whether their clerks were learning. And there must have been so many times that we said silly things or that we thought we found some new issue, but they'd seen it 18,000 times already. they were always just so kind and thoughtful. They were always like, thank you so much for finding that issue. Thank you for thinking about this. And they had a very gentle way of providing feedback, which was, again, we must have done all sorts of silly things.

And instead of saying, well, that's terrible or no, you're wrong. They would say, well, why did you come to that conclusion? And what about if I asked you this question? Or did you look at this? Did you look at that? What do you think about this case? And then, you know, and then you would see how they were thinking and how they got to an issue. And and it was exciting to learn that you were wrong or learn that, you know, you had not thought about something that was really important and that they were showing it to you. And so they didn't.

spend those large amounts of time. They could have just said, well, go back and look at this issue or come back with something else or anything, but they didn't. And so I learned a lot from that. So first of all, I benefited so much from that. Again, having that personal attention. I feel like my writing skills and my legal analysis skills just grew by leaps and bounds working with both of them, even in a way that didn't always happen in the classroom because you don't have that personal attention.

Joyce Sophia Xu (16:59.374)
And so that's what I try to do for my students is first instill how important what they're doing is. Whatever case you're working on, really matters to someone. They wouldn't have gone to court or gotten sued or whatever if it didn't really, really matter. And it's a privilege to be able to play a role like that in someone's life. So it's something you have to take really seriously. It's an honor and a privilege to be a lawyer and to be entrusted with this work. And so it's important to...

do your best and think about the consequences and outcomes and think about these cases as not just involving law, but involving people and an impact on people. And so that's how I try to teach to my students. This is why I love doing seminars the best because it's a small group of students and you can be very engaged with them. You can do a lot of interactive activities. And I try to emulate that model of asking the students questions, thinking about how to get them.

to broaden their perspective or think about issues they haven't thought about or just think about something in a totally different way and to channel their enthusiasm. Even if they are totally missed the point on something, they're excited to find out the answer, right? And so you want to maintain that enthusiasm. So in my seminars and especially the ones where we talk about policy or how changes have been made, sometimes we're looking historically, sometimes we're looking into the future.

Those are the ones where I see the moments that there's been that transformation for a student. And I've just had a couple of moments where the students will say, do you remember we studied this topic? Well, I'm working on that now. I got a job in that area. you invited a guest speaker to our class, and I emailed the guest speaker and talked to them, and I decided that that's what I wanted to do. Or I often had when I

I taught some intros to international human rights and intros to international law. And I've taught them both at the law school level and the undergrad level because I also taught at an international affairs school and as at Indiana University. And one of the things I had students do was create their own human rights reports, which were, there's a set format for writing a report on a particular legal issue. And I would tell the students they could pick any topic they wanted.

Joyce Sophia Xu (19:22.666)
and they could have any position on that topic they wanted. I just wanted them to be able to do deep research, analyze the issue, and be able to justify their reasoning and explain how they got to this conclusion about is this a human rights violation? Is this an international law violation? Is this a US domestic law violation? Whatever it is, or not, right? Maybe there's no legal violation, but there's something that the law doesn't address or whatever it is.

And it's been such an amazing experience to see what issues the students decide to pursue. It's always a huge rage. every time I teach the class, there's issues I've never heard of and didn't know about before. And the students get really excited, and they pull together all sorts of information and then end up writing this report about the issue that they are so interested in.

And so one of my favorite experiences is then I ask them to present to the class, like what was the issue they were looking at? What's the background? What's their recommendation? Should the lobby change in this way? Should a particular agency do X, or Z? And that is so much fun because they look at everything from a particular issue in the local school system to...

an international environmental treaty, for example. There's a huge range. And then just seeing again how they get excited about a topic, how they spent time learning about it and thinking about it. And they came up with a way to address a part of that problem. And now they have a roadmap for how they can do research projects and how they can use legal analysis and how they can use information that they find out there.

And then, so I think those are my most exciting moments is then when the student comes back to me and sometimes they'll say, do you know I picked this topic in this particular country that I'd never been to because I read an article about it and seemed really interesting. And now I'm in that country and I'm emailing it, I'm emailing you from there because I got a job there because I so interested in it. I love it. Yeah, I love the way you teach your classes because you give the students that opportunity to.

Joyce Sophia Xu (21:34.082)
really go through the entire process and live it and in being engaged, not just intellectually, but also emotionally in what they're doing. So I could see that being totally rewarding for the students. And it sounds like in some cases, even life-changing. So that's just amazing to have that kind of impact on a student's career.

Joyce Sophia Xu (22:09.144)
Thank you so much for listening. If any part of our conversation resonated with you, please connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram and share your thoughts with us. The links to these sites are all in the show description. And be sure to subscribe to our show and tune in for part three of my conversation with Shudi, where we will get into some of the most important projects Shudi has been working on and learn more about how she also finds fulfillment in her life outside of work.

Until then, be well and be happy.