Professor Benvenue joins Santa Clara Law as an Associate Clinical Professor and the Director of the Flex JD program. Professor Benvenue will teach law students in both the full-time and Flex JD program. As the Director of Santa Clara Law’s new Flex JD Program, Professor Benvenue will collaborate with students, faculty, Deans, and the Director of Online Legal Programs to ensure that Flex JD students obtain the same exceptional education and opportunities available to all Santa Clara Law students. To achieve this goal, Professor Benvenue will develop individual relationships with the students in the program and work with departments throughout the law school and university including, Student Services, Enrollment Management, Career Management, Bursar, Disability Resources, and IT. Through these collaborations, Flex JD students will obtain a high-quality education and be prepared to achieve their future career goals while balancing their existing career and family commitments.

Prior to joining the faculty at Santa Clara Law in August 2023, Professor Benvenue was an Associate Professor of Law and the Director of Golden Gate University School of Law’s JD Flex Program during its first two years. At GGU Law she taught Civil Procedure and Constitutional Issues in Immigration Law and co-founded the Immigration Law clinic, which provided part time students the opportunity to represent clients seeking asylum and other humanitarian relief. Before joining GGU Law’s faculty full time, Professor Benvenue spent more than a decade as a legal advocate advancing the rights of immigrants. She was the Director of Immigration Legal Services at an East Bay non-profit organization which focused on providing quality legal services at no cost to thousands of immigrants in California. Professor Benvenue also worked at a leading deportation defense firm in San Francisco where she represented hundreds of clients in deportation hearings, administrative appeals, petitions for review before the Circuit Courts and in federal court litigation against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Professor Benvenue is an experienced trial and appellate litigator, with a particular passion for appellate oral arguments. Her advocacy in the Ninth Circuit has resulted in several published cases, including Ali v. Holder, 637 F. 3d 1025 (9th Cir. 2011), Ramirez v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir. 2016), Allen v. Milas, 896 F.3d 1094 (9th Cir. 2018), and Janjua v. Neufeld, 933 F.3d 1061 (9th Cir. 2019).