2022 Inaugural Graciela Olivárez Latinas in the Legal Academy ("GO LILA") Workshop
Sherley Cruz
Sherley Cruz is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s College of Law (UTK) where she supervises students in the Advocacy Clinic. Her scholarship explores the intersections of access to justice, low-wage workers’ rights, and cross-cultural communications. Prior to joining UTK, Professor Cruz was a Practitioner in Residence with American University’s Washington College of Law’s Civil Advocacy Clinic and supervised law students on economic justice cases such as wage theft, unemployment insurance, and community legal education matters.
Professor Cruz was the Director of Litigation and Education and a Clinical Fellow at Suffolk University Law School with the housing discrimination testing program and accelerator practice. While at Suffolk, she supervised law students handling housing discrimination cases and conducted community legal education regarding fair housing duties and responsibilities. She also created and taught an innovative movement lawyering seminar that explored the lawyer’s role in community organizing and campaigns. Professor Cruz started her teaching career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Law where she led the Employment Rights Clinic.
Before becoming a professor, she worked as a staff attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services in the Employment Law Unit. At GBLS she represented low-wage and immigrant workers with unemployment, wage and hour, discrimination, workplace harassment, and working condition issues, in addition to supporting immigrant worker centers with organizing campaigns and community actions. Professor Cruz has also served as the Outreach Coordinator for the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts’s Fair Labor Division.
Born in the Dominican Republic, Professor Cruz has a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and a B.A., cum laude, from Boston University. She has been an active leader in community and bar associations. She currently serves as a faculty fellow for UTK’s Office of Community Engagement and Outreach and the co-chair of the AALS Clinicians of Color Committee. Her former service includes chair of the DC Hispanic Bar Public Service Committee, vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Hispanic Professors, the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, and the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association’s Women’s Leadership Initiative. The National Law Journal and Connecticut Law Tribune recognized her as a 2015 Boston Rising Star. In 2012, the Massachusetts Bar Association and Lawyers Weekly recognized her as an Up and Coming Lawyer. While at American University Washington College of Law, Professor Cruz received their Public Interest Program Public Interest Program Faculty Award in recognition of her dedication and support for public interest work. Since joining UTK, she has received UTK’s Wilkinson Junior Research Professorship award and the Angie Warren Perkins Chancellor’s Honors award for promise as a scholar and professor.
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