In the first year of her PhD in anthropology at the University of Chicago, Deepa Das Acevedo, ’16, shifted her focus. In her application, she proposed studying religious tolerance among Hindu Americans, but she found herself fascinated by the law. She changed her project topic, leaving to study secular governance, religion, and state relations in India.

By the time Acevedo had returned to the United States, law had almost entirely taken over her reading. The idea of becoming a law professor simply made sense, and Acevedo crossed the Midway to attend the Law School.

Before law school started, she served as a research assistant for Tom Ginsburg, the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law, who helped her host a conference on contemporary Indian law. Her time with Ginsburg helped her structure her time at the Law School, as he advised her to figure out a good teaching and research portfolio that would play to her strengths. Acevedo spent office hours with professors, discussing potential research topics, and took independent studies to refine her ideas.

“I used law school both as a way to figure out what kind of legal scholar I might want to be, and then to try and give myself a crash course in becoming that type of legal scholar,” Acevedo said. Eventually, she chose labor and employment law as her niche.

After holding summer associate positions at two law firms and teaching and researching for two years at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School as a fellow, Acevedo accepted an offer at the University of Alabama in 2018, then moved to Emory Law five years later.

Now, Acevedo maintains a busy schedule as a professor of legal anthropology, the study of law in culture and society. She teaches classes on employment law, employee benefits, as well as legislation and regulation.

In her research, Acevedo has studied the gig economy and lately has been studying tenure as an employment protection, including writing and releasing a book called The War on Tenure. She serves as editor of The Political and Legal Anthropology Review Journal, and is working on her next book about Indian law.

Acevedo said that her time at the Law School taught her to say “yes” more often. She’d say “yes” to people asking for help, whether students or colleagues, but also when someone offered her an opportunity to engage, even if it meant more work. “Once you say ‘yes’ enough, you develop the knowledge base and the skill set to say ‘yes’ with it being less of a hardship on yourself,” she said.

Acevedo's Advice to Aspiring Academics:

"Learn where you’d like to be and work backwards. If you want to be in a faculty position, work on your research and teaching portfolio. Think about what kind of professor you want to be and talk to professors who fit that mold."

This story is part of a series about Law School alumni in academia. View the full series here.