UC Irvine School of Law
IRVINE, Calif. (June 7, 2024) — University of California, Irvine School of Law Professor Swethaa Ballakrishnen and collaborator Suryapratim Roy, Assistant Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin, have been awarded a Law and Society Association Global Collaboration Grant for their research project, “Law & the Interloper: Comparative Projects and the Potential of Queer Theory.”
The grant was conferred upon Prof. Ballakrishnen and Prof. Roy by the Law and Society Association (LSA) Coordinator of Global Activities and International Activities Committee. The committee is responsible for developing programs that attend to the needs of international LSA members and that promote greater awareness of comparative and transnational scholarship.
About Professor Swethaa Ballakrishnen
Professor Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen (they/them) is a socio-legal scholar whose research examines the intersections between law, globalization and stratification from a critical, queer and global south perspective. Particularly, across a range of sites and different levels of analysis, their work interrogates how law and legal institutions create, continue, and counter different kinds of socio-economic inequalities.
Prof. Ballakrishnen is committed to building and serving socio-legal communities, especially ones that focus on critical questions concerning legal education and the profession. At UC Irvine, they co-run the Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession, the Socio-Legal Studies Workshop, and the Law, Society, and Culture Emphasis. In addition, beyond UC Irvine, they serve on the editorial board of the academic journal Law & Social Inquiry (LSI) for the 2024–2026 term and the Editorial Advisory Board for Law & Society Review (LSR). They are also affiliated faculty at the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession, and previously served on the LSA Board of Trustees, the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Empirical Study of Legal Education and the Legal Profession, and the ISA Research Committee on Sociology of Law. Prof. Ballakrishnen is also a co-founder of the LSA Collaborative Research Network on Legal Education.
About the University of California, Irvine’s Leadership in the Socio-Legal Community
The University of California, Irvine has long had a deep connection with the Law and Society Association (LSA). Many of our faculty — at the Law School and across campus — are leading scholars in the LSA. Among the Law School faculty, Prof. Veena Dubal is a current member of the LSA Board of Trustees and Profs. Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Mario Barnes and Kaaryn Gustafson previously served as trustees; Prof. Shauhin Talesh serves as General Editor of the Law and Society Review (LSR) and Profs. Ballakrishnen and Emily Taylor Poppe currently serve on the Editorial Advisory Board of LSR.
LSA has also consistently recognized our faculty’s scholarship and service — Prof. Ballakrishnen is a prior awardee of the Herbert Jacob Book Prize; Prof. Gustafson has won the Herbert Jacob Book Prize and the Stan Wheeler Mentorship Award; Prof. Ari Ezra Waldman has won the LSA Article Prize; and Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus Bryant Garth has won two Herbert Jacob Book Prizes and the Harry J. Kalven Jr. Prize.
UC Irvine also has significant socio-legal programming: UC Irvine’s Center in Law, Society and Culture hosts a regular interdisciplinary Socio-Legal Studies Workshop, the Center on Globalization, Law and Society plays an important role in showcasing global law and society issues, socio-legal research plays a prominent role in the UC Irvine School of Law curriculum, and students may choose an emphasis in Law, Society, and Culture.
About the University of California, Irvine School of Law
The University of California, Irvine School of Law is a visionary law school that provides an innovative and comprehensive curriculum, prioritizes public service, and demonstrates a commitment to equity within the legal profession. Nearly half of all UCI Law’s J.D. graduates are people of color, and almost a third are first-generation students. At UCI Law, we are driven to improve our local, national, and global communities by grappling with important issues as scholars, as practitioners, and as teachers who are preparing the next generation of leaders. The collaborative and interdisciplinary community at UCI Law includes extraordinary students, world-renowned faculty, dedicated staff, engaged alumni, and enthusiastic supporters. Connect with us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads, and sign up for our monthly newsletter for the latest news and events at UCI Law.