Rita Sethi

Rita Sethi

Special Professor of Law

B.A., Barnard College Columbia University
J.D., Northeastern University

E-mail: Rita.A.Sethi@hofstra.edu

Biography

Rita Sethi practices anti-discrimination law. She handled individual and systemic Title VIII housing discrimination cases in court and administrative agencies at Legal Services in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at The Open Housing Center, Inc., a fair housing advocacy organization, and taught the Fair Housing Clinic at Columbia Law School.

She has practiced employment law as the Director of Investigations at the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action at Columbia University and since 2010 as consulting counsel for New York area labor and employment law firms.  In this capacity she has advocated for hundreds of plaintiffs in informal negotiations, mediations, and at administrative agencies and court under Title VII, New York State and New York City anti-discrimination laws, Fair Labor Standards Act, New York Labor Law, the Equal Pay Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, and the False Claims Act.

At Hofstra, she has taught the Legal Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiating (LICN) course since 2010 and previously taught the Summer Externship Program.  LICN develops fundamental legal skills through both theory and role-play, simulation with actors, theater exercise and opportunities for robust feedback and reflection; students practice lawyering techniques utilizing a workplace discharge simulation, from initial intake to negotiated resolution.

She has participated in conducting trainings at NELA/NY “Practice at the New York City Commission on Human Rights”; NELA/NY “Representing Undocumented Workers in the Trump Era”; CHHAYA CDC “Housing Challenges Among Immigrants in NYC”; COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Profession of Law - Legal Ethics Course; N.Y. LAWYERS FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST “Fair Housing Legal Training Workshop”; ASIAN AMERICANS FOR EQUALITY “Fair Housing Seminar for Legal Professionals”; and BROOKLYN LEGAL SERVICES “Identifying and Confronting Discrimination in Housing.”

Her writing has been published in The State of Asian-America: Activism and Resistance in the 1990s, and “Speaking Up! Speaking Out! The Power of Student Speech in Law School Classrooms,” Rutgers Women’s Rights Law Reporter, Winter 1994.

Ms. Sethi is a graduate of Barnard College and Northeastern University School of Law.