Sukti Dhital is a human rights lawyer and the Executive Director of the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU School of Law, a law center dedicated to advancing legal empowerment through participatory research, education, and advocacy. She also serves as a Supervising Attorney with the Global Justice Clinic at NYU Law, where she oversees legal empowerment projects spanning jailhouse lawyers and immigrant rights. Previously, Sukti was the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Nazdeek, a legal empowerment organization committed to bringing access to justice closer to marginalized communities in India. At Nazdeek, Sukti worked closely with affected community members and social movements to advance labor, food, health, and housing rights through a community-driven approach, with a focus on indigenous and Dalit women.

Prior to Nazdeek, Sukti was the Director of the Reproductive Rights Unit at the Human Rights Law Network, India and assisted in securing landmark social and economic rights judgments including Laxmi Mandal v. Deen Dayal Harinagar Hospital & ORS, W.P.(C) 8853/2008, the first decision in the world to recognize maternal mortality as a human rights violation and to award constitutional damages. She has also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project and as an appellate litigation associate at the firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP. Sukti received her BA from the University of Michigan and her JD from Northeastern University School of Law. She is a frequent speaker at institutions and conferences concerning issues of social and economic rights, gender equality, clinical legal education and legal empowerment.