Professor Monica Teixeira de Sousa created and has served as the director of the
First Generation Students Program since 2019. Before joining the New England Law faculty in 2007, Professor Teixeira de Sousa was a staff attorney at Rhode Island Legal Services, where she began practicing in 2002 as a Skadden Fellow and created a school-based legal clinic in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. She represented parents and students in school discipline and special education cases, as well as public benefits, family law, and housing issues.
Professor Teixeira de Sousa has written and presented on issues of equity and education. In 2014, she took a sabbatical from academic teaching and worked as a volunteer attorney in the Public Benefits Unit at Rhode Island Legal Services. She has served as a member of the Rhode Island College Upward Bound Program Alumni Scholarship Committee since 2013. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Cape Verdean American Lawyers Association. Professor Teixeira de Sousa earned her JD, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 2002 and her BA from Brown University in 1998.