Komal Vaidya

Director, Clinic for Law & Entrepreneurship
Associate Professor of Law

Biography

Komal Vaidya joined the Villanova faculty in July of 2019 as the Director of the Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship. She teaches seminar and supervises student representation of small businesses, nonprofits, and other social and community-oriented enterprises.

Prior to joining Villanova, she served as a Clinical Fellow and Acting Director in the University of Baltimore School of Law (UB) Community Development Clinic. There, she supervised student representation on transactional and business law matters, many of which also supported grassroots economic empowerment. In addition, she worked alongside coalitions to advocate for water equity and community land trusts in Baltimore.

Professor Vaidya also provided transactional support to community organizers and manufactured housing residents in the Denver Metro area. Specifically, she provided expertise that enabled communities to form homeowners’ associations and use zoning law to halt displacement and promote community ownership of land. Further, while a staff attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing in Chicago, she collaborated with community organizations on displacement related efforts.

In addition to her teaching experience at UB, she taught Lawyering Process at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and was an Equal Justice Works Foreclosure Fellow in the University of Illinois College of Law Community Preservation Clinic. Her research interests focus on collective ownership, local political economies, and progressive property rights. She is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and Illinois.