Education:

M. St., University of Oxford

J.D., Harvard Law School

B.A., Brown University

Teaching and Scholarship:

International human rights, children’s rights and family law; the role of children’s counsel in various contexts; family autonomy in traditionally underserved populations; immigration law and legal ethics.

Professional Activities:

University of Florida: Joined College of Law in 2007 as Assistant Professor; Promoted to Associate Professor in 2010; Tenured and promoted to Professor of Law in 2013.

Prior Academic Experience: University of California Boalt Hall School of Law, Guest Lecturer, School Discipline Clinic, (March 2006), University of San Francisco School of Law, Guest Lecturer, Child Advocacy Clinic (April 2006).

Prior Professional Experience: Legal Services for Children, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.) (2004-2007); Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Silberberg (New York, N.Y.) (2003-2004), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson (New York, NY (2000-2003)

Bar Admissions:

California, New York, U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.

Biography:

Shani M. King is Professor of Law and Co-Director of the law school’s Center on Children and Families. He received a B.A. from Brown University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an Mst. in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University. Following law school, he was a Harvard Sheldon Knox Traveling Fellow with EDUCA, a not-for-profit organization in the Dominican Republic that was conducting an analysis of a major educational reform effort. Afterward, Professor King practiced securities litigation and white-collar criminal defense at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Silberberg in New York City. Just prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law, Professor King practiced at Legal Services for Children, Inc. in San Francisco, California, where he litigated cases under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and represented children in immigration, dependency, guardianship, and school discipline proceedings.

Professor King has been active in local, regional and national child welfare and juvenile reform, serving on the board of the Youth Law Center and the Florida Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Children, and on the advisory board of Florida Children’s First. Professor King teaches and writes in the area of children’s rights and family law, with a particular interest the role of child’s counsel in various contexts, and more generally in the rights of children and families, especially those from traditionally underserved populations and the public responsibility to protect those rights. His past and forthcoming publications appear in the North Carolina Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Harvard Journal on Legislation, the Harvard Human Rights Journal, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the Michigan Journal of International Law, the Family Law Quarterly, the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, and the Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy.

Professor King is currently working on a number of projects. In one, Professor King is exploring the rise of mass incarceration and its effects on individuals, families and communities; he is specifically exploring the Baby Elmo Program, a cost-effective sustainable parent instruction and child visitation intervention created for use with incarcerated teen parents. In another, Professor King is working on a project involving the history of legislation that applies to child migrants. Professor King is also exploring the place of family background in the Supreme Court confirmation process. Lastly, Professor King involved in a larger book project that explores how family law’s failure to account for the legal, social and economic realities of families undermines the ability of families to maintain autonomy over important family decisions. This book project explores the extent to which legal protections for families vary with race, physical and mental ability and mental health, socioeconomic status, immigration status, gender, and sexual orientation.