Sherley Cruz joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee College of Law as an Assistant Professor in 2019 teaching and supervising students in the Advocacy Clinic. Her scholarship explores the intersection of access to justice and low-wage workers’ rights and advocates for justice and dignity at work. An up-and-coming scholar, her law review article, Essentially Unprotected, received UT Law’s Wilkinson Junior Research Award. In 2024, she received UT College of Law’s Thomas and Elizabeth Fox Faculty Excellence Award and UTK’s Angie Warren Perkins Chancellor’s Honors award for her promise as a scholar and professor in 2022.

Prior to joining UT Law, Professor Cruz was a Practitioner in Residence with American University’s Washington College of Law’s Civil Advocacy Clinic (WCL) where she supervised law students on civil litigation and community legal education matters. In 2018, she received WCL’s Public Interest Program Faculty Award. Before WCL, 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. At Suffolk, she supervised law students handling housing discrimination cases and conducted community legal education regarding fair housing duties and responsibilities. Professor Cruz started her teaching career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Law where she helped launch the Employment Rights Clinic.

Before entering academia, Professor Cruz worked as a staff attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services in the Employment Law Unit. Professor Cruz has also served as the Outreach Coordinator for the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts’s Fair Labor Division.

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. The National Law Journal and Connecticut Law Tribune recognized Professor Cruz as a 2015 Boston Rising Star. In 2012, the Massachusetts Bar Association and Lawyers Weekly recognized Cruz as an Up-and-Coming Lawyer.

• Education & Experience
• Publications

J.D., Boston University School of Law
B.A., Boston University

Curriculum Vitae

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Full list of SSRN scholarly papers