usheela Varky has been involved in the public interest arena for almost 30 years. In DC, she gained national and local experience in housing and women’s issues at organizations such as McAuley Institute, The National Housing Trust, and Women Empowered Against Violence. In 1998, she joined the national drafting committee of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and helped write VAWA’s original housing provisions. Since moving to Richmond in 2003, Ms. Varky has worked for Legal Information Network for Cancer (LINC), the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia (OES), and is currently working for Virginia Poverty Law Center (VPLC).
At OES, Ms. Varky worked with other state agencies to improve domestic violence protective order policies and procedures in six diverse localities in Virginia. Since September 2007, Ms. Varky has continued her work in the domestic and sexual violence arena as a staff attorney for VPLC, the statewide support organization for the local legal aid offices in Virginia, collaborating with state and local stakeholders, conducting trainings, engaging in advocacy, providing legal consultations, and taking compelling domestic and/or sexual violence, immigration-related cases through a pro bono legal clinic she started in 2009 called Legal Assistance to Victim-Immigrants of Domestic Abuse (LA VIDA). In addition to these responsibilities, Ms. Varky leads VPLC’s Center for Family Advocacy, where she oversees team members’ work on family law, immigration, and child welfare.
Ms. Varky’s LA VIDA program focuses on serving the visa needs of low-income, undocumented, or under-documented, immigrant domestic, and/or sexual violence victims. As part of her LA VIDA work and as a resource to the community, Ms. Varky offers trainings on the remedies available to these victims of crime. Since 2009, she has been training advocates, other attorneys, law enforcement officers, and other service providers on these and other victim-related subjects.
Ms. Varky received her B.A. from Tufts University in 1986 and her J.D. from the Washington College of Law at The American University in 1993. She is licensed in VA, DC, and in PA, and lives in Richmond, VA.
