The Kentucky Law Journal will reveal panelists for its upcoming Symposium each week. You can attend the Symposium, Immigration Law in Kentucky and the United States: A Discussion on Current Changes in Immigrants’ Legal Landscape, on November 7, 2025, at the J. David Rosenberg College of Law.
The Kentucky Law Journal is pleased to announce three of our upcoming symposium speakers: Professor Tiffany Lieu, Professor Hiroshi Motomura, and State Representative Nima Kulkarni.
Prof. Tiffany Lieu
Professor Tiffany Lieu
Professor Tiffany Lieu is a Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School, where she teaches courses on Crimmigration, Strategic Litigation, and Immigration Advocacy. Through Harvard Law’s Crimmigration Clinic, Professor Lieu supervises and trains students on appellate and affirmative litigation as well as direct representation matters. She has litigated extensively in federal courts and administrative tribunals and has authored briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of the criminal and immigration legal systems, with a particular emphasis on procedural fairness in immigration proceedings.
Her recent publications include Effectively Irrebuttable Presumptions: Empty Rituals and Due Process in Immigration Proceedings, which argues that certain rebuttable presumptions in U.S. civil law function as effectively irrebuttable ones, undermining due process in the immigration context. Another of her publications, Denial of Justice: The Biden Administration’s Dedicated Docket in the Boston Immigration Court, offers an empirical study documenting the inequities faced by asylum-seeking families in expedited immigration proceedings.
Before joining the Harvard Law faculty, Professor Lieu clerked for the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Honorable Keith P. Ellison on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She previously served as a staff attorney at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and was a Stanford Public Interest Fellow. Professor Lieu earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. in History from Duke University.
With this background in scholarship, litigation, and advocacy, Professor Lieu will contribute her expertise to the Kentucky Law Journal’s Crimmigration panel.
Prof. Hiroshi Motomura
Professor Hiroshi Motomura
Professor Hiroshi Motomura has been a leading voice and scholar on U.S. immigration policy for over three decades. He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University and received his J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law. He joined UCLA in 2007, where he is the Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy. In 2013, he was one of only twenty-six professors nationwide profiled in What the Best Law Teachers Do, published by Harvard University Press.
Professor Motomura has shaped immigration and citizenship law as an internationally renowned professor, author, and advocate in immigration and citizenship law. He is the award-winning author of Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (2006) and Immigration Outside the Law (2014), is co-author of a leading immigration law casebook, and most recently published Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy (2025). Beyond his scholarship, Professor Motomura is the co-host of a podcast series on immigration issues, testified before Congress, served as co-counsel and a consultant in immigration appellate cases, and advised the Obama-Biden transition team on immigration policy. He also is a founding director of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, and he served for nine years on the board of directors of the National Immigration Law Center.
Professor Motomura’s many accolades and publications reflect a career of lasting influence and distinction in the field of immigration law. Drawing on this expertise, he will bring his unique perspective to the Kentucky Law Journal’s Borders, Belonging, and the Law panel, where he will discuss the complexities of immigration law through the lens of his recent book.
State Rep. Nima Kulkarni
State Rep. Nima Kulkarni
State Representative Nima Kulkarni currently represents Kentucky’s 40th District in the State House of Representatives. Elected in 2018, she has sponsored or co-sponsored over 441 bills while continuing to practice law. She is also the first ever Indian immigrant elected to the Kentucky Legislature.
Since immigrating to the United States at age six, Representative Kulkarni has spent most of her life in Louisville, attending Watterson Elementary, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School. She remained in Louisville following her high school graduation, earning a B.A. in English Literature and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from the University of Louisville. She eventually moved to Washington, D.C. for law school, where she received her J.D. from the Antioch-UDC Law School.
In 2010, Representative Kulkarni founded Indus Law Firm, which specializes in complex immigration and employment matters. She remains a Principal Attorney at Indus, representing clients and providing trainings, information sessions, and seminars for attorneys statewide. She also serves on multiple nonprofit boards, including the New Americans Initiative, which she founded in 2013. The New Americans Initiative is dedicated to educating, engaging, and supporting pathways for Kentucky immigrants to participate in the electoral process by naturalizing.
Representative Kulkarni has been widely recognized for her advocacy of immigration-related issues, and will be participating in the Kentucky Law Journal’s Navigating Immigration in Kentucky panel. Her discussion will also emphasize the role of sanctuary jurisdictions and how federal and state immigration policies directly affect those in our Commonwealth.
