Dear Friends,
On behalf of Volunteers of Legal Service, I am thrilled to announce that Abja Midha will be our next Executive Director beginning February 1, 2021.
Abja Midha is an experienced and accomplished nonprofit executive, litigator, teacher, and community leader. She brings to VOLS a commitment to social and racial justice, alongside an impressive track record in legal and policy advocacy, nonprofit strategy and program development, and coalition building.
As our city faces the threefold crises of pandemic, economic recession, and a renewed challenge to racial equity, VOLS’ executive search committee of board and staff members sought a leader who will work with our pro bono and community partners to pursue social, economic, and racial justice through our legal service and advocacy. We are so glad that Abja will be taking on this role.
Abja has held a number of senior nonprofit leadership roles, most recently as head of the Work-Based Learning Labs department at HERE to HERE, where she led the organization’s efforts to integrate work-based learning into K-12 and higher education curriculum and school design in the Bronx and across New York City. She previously was the Deputy Director at The Education Trust – New York, where she partnered with organizations across New York State to advocate for the elimination of gaps in equity and opportunity that prevent students from succeeding. Abja has also served as a Project Director at Advocates for Children of New York, where she led the Immigrant Students’ Rights Project and coordinated a statewide coalition that successfully advocated for changes to New York high school graduation requirements.
She is an experienced litigator, having represented immigrant families seeking English Language Learner and special education services for their children at Advocates for Children, as well as immigrant survivors of gender-based violence seeking asylum while an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Sanctuary for Families. Abja was also a litigation associate at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and clerked for the Honorable Charles P. Sifton in United States District Court, Eastern District of New York.
Abja took on her first pro bono cases while at Patterson Belknap. She was inspired to continue in public interest after successfully representing a South Asian family seeking special education services for their daughter who was diagnosed with autism.
Abja enjoys teaching students across disciplines. Currently, she teaches a doctoral level Education Policy Analysis course at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She has guest lectured at Columbia University’s School of Social Work and Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Work, and she has served on the faculty of the annual Practising Law Institute’s School Law Institute.
Her commitment to social and racial justice extends beyond her work activities. She is the Treasurer of the Lineage Project, an organization that teaches trauma-sensitive mindfulness to systems-involved young people navigating serious challenges and the adults who work with them. Abja co-founded and served on the Board for the Refugee Reunification Project, which assists refugee families to reunite safely in the United States of America.
Abja graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Brown University and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was the recipient of the Charles G. Albom Prize for appellate advocacy. She is admitted to the bars in New York and Connecticut.
Please join me in welcoming Abja to the VOLS team.
Sincerely,
Karen Artz Ash Board
Chair, Volunteers of Legal Service
Partner, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
Volunteers of Legal Service was founded in 1984 by NYC Bar Association leaders to fill a void left by severe federal budget cuts to legal services in NYC by promoting pro bono involvement at city law firms and companies. As we respond to today’s crises, VOLS partners with over 70 law firms and companies, in collaboration with over 200 community-based organizations, to address critical legal challenges facing low-income seniors & older veterans, unemployed workers, immigrant youth, children and their families, mothers in prison or jail, small business owners, COVID-19 frontline & healthcare workers, and formerly homeless youth. For more, visit www.volsprobono.org.