Giovanna Shay
Giovanna Shay has served as GHLA’s Litigation & Advocacy Director since 2014.
During her tenure, GHLA has advocated successfully for a pathway to citizenship for abused, abandoned, and neglected immigrant youth in Connecticut ages 18-20; litigated to obtain delayed employment authorization papers for immigrant crime victims; and worked to achieve passage of Connecticut’s first eviction records reform. Giovanna currently manages GHLA’s eviction defense and housing conditions work.
Before joining GHLA, Giovanna was a tenured Professor of Law at Western New England University School of Law, a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and a Robert M. Cover Fellow at the Yale Legal Services Organization. Earlier in her career, she was a Soros Justice Fellow at the ACLU National Prison Project and law clerk to then-Senior Justice Ellen Ash Peters at the Connecticut Supreme Court.
She is a graduate of Pomona College and Yale Law School.