Southwestern Law School Professor Meera E. Deo has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Law and Society Association (LSA), one of the world’s leading interdisciplinary organizations for sociolegal research. She joins the Class of 2028, a group of eight scholars selected by LSA’s international membership for their contributions to the study of law in social context. 

LSA brings together thousands of academics across fields—law, sociology, political science, history, anthropology, psychology, and public policy—to shape national and global conversations about how law functions in society. Board members help guide the organization’s research priorities, conferences, publications, and collaborative networks. 

Deo’s election reflects her long-standing influence in empirical legal studies. As the Honorable Vaino Spencer Chair at Southwestern and Director of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) based at Indiana University, she has led some of the most significant national studies on inequality in legal education. Her scholarship on race, gender, and institutional culture, including her book Unequal Profession: Race and Gender in Legal Academia—has been widely cited for reframing how the legal academy understands faculty life and the student experience. 

Most recently, Deo co-authored the 2025 LSSSE Annual Report, Disability in Law School, the first national empirical study focused specifically on law students with disabilities. Building on her long record of producing high quality qualitative research, the project brings rigorous, large-scale data to an area of legal education where evidence has been largely absent, giving schools a clearer foundation for understanding and responding to the needs of a substantial share of their student population. 

“The Law and Society Association has been an intellectual home for me since I first joined the legal academy,” Deo said. “I am honored to serve my colleagues across the disciplines in shaping our future, particularly in these uncertain times.”