Sahani Victoria

Victoria Sahani

Professor of Law


AB, Harvard University
JD, Harvard University


Biography

Victoria Shannon Sahani is a Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law and previously served as the Associate Provost for Community and Inclusion at Boston Universityfrom 2022-2025. Before joining BU, she served as Associate Dean of Faculty Development / Special Projects and Professor of Law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. She also served as Director of the Faculty Inclusion Research for System Transformation (FIRST) Initiative at Arizona State University, a university-wide initiative commissioned by the ASU President’s Office. She started her teaching career and was promoted to Associate Professor of Law at Washington & Lee University School of Law.

Professor Sahani is an internationally recognized legal scholar in the fields of arbitration law and third-party litigation funding law, as well as an award-winning teacher. She has 18 years of experience in international arbitration and more than 16 years of expertise in third-party funding. She also serves as an independent arbitrator, consultant, and expert witness. She is a co-author of the book Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration (Wolters Kluwer, 2d ed. 2017) (with Lisa Bench Nieuwveld) – the first book in the world to be published on this topic. She has also written chapters in books published by Cambridge University Press, Brill Nijhoff, LexisNexis/Matthew Bender, Springer, JURIS, Edward Elgar Publishing, and Wolters Kluwer; and law review articles and essays published in the UCLA Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Utah Law Review, Tulane Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, DePaul Law Review, Fordham International Law Journal, AJIL Unbound, and other domestic and international journals. She is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center (SVAMC), an Editorial Board Member of Editorial Board Member, Arbitration: The Journal of Arbitration, Mediation, and Dispute Management (peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal of CIArb published by Wolters Kluwer), Member and Past Chair of the Academic Council for the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA), Immediate Past Chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on International Law, a Counsellor of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), an Elected Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and an American Bar Foundation (ABF) Fellow.

Before teaching law, Professor Sahani served as Deputy Director of Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in North America for the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) International Court of Arbitration and Deputy Director of the Arbitration and ADR Committee of the US Council for International Business (USCIB). Before joining the ICC and USCIB, she practiced law and worked on transactions related to affordable housing and community-based real estate development, as well as matters involving American Indian law and housing discrimination claims in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina.

Professor Sahani received her law degree from Harvard Law School and her undergraduate degree in psychology from Harvard College. She remains an active member of the bar in New York and the District of Columbia.

 

Watch Victoria Sahani testify before Congress as an expert witness to discuss her academic research on third-party litigation funding.

Publications

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  • Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, and Access to Justice 49 Seattle University Law Review (2026)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Imagining How U.S. Federalism Would Affect Third-Party Funding Regulation 25 Theoretical Inquiries In Law (2025)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), in Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of International Commercial Arbitration (Franco Ferrari & Friedrich Rosenfeld,2025)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Funding, in Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of International Commercial Arbitration (Franco Ferrari & Friedrich Rosenfeld,2025)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Predicting Federal Third-Party Funding Regulation 2025 Utah Law Review (2025)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Funders, in Cambridge Compendium of International Commercial and Investment Arbitration (2023)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, The Impact of Third-Party Funding on Access to Justice, in YSEC Yearbook of Socio-Economic Constitutions 2022: Funding of Justice (Eva Storskrubb,2023)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Funding in International Commercial Arbitration, in International Commercial Arbitration Practice: 21st Century Perspectives (Paul E. Mason and Horacio A. Grigera Naón,2022)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, "Keep To the Code”: A Global Code of Conduct for Third-Party Funders 102 Boston University Law Review (2022)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Global Laboratories of Third-Party Funding Regulation 115 AJIL Unbound (2021)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Addressing Financial Access to Justice in Investment Treaty Arbitration, in The Investor-State Dispute Settlement System: Reform, Replace or Status Quo? (Alan M. Anderson and Ben Beaumont,2020)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Rethinking the Impact of Third-Party Funding on Access to Civil Justice 69 DePaul Law Review (2020)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Disclosure of Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration Mandatory Disclosure Rules in Dispute Financing (2020)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, A Thought-Experiment Regarding Access to Justice in International Arbitration, in Evolution and Adaptation: The Future of International Arbitration (Sydney 2018) (Jean Kalicki and Mohamed Abdel Raouf,2019)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, A Hardy Case Makes Bad Law 43 Fordham International Law Journal (2019)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Mick Smith & Christiane Deniger, Third-Party Financing in Investment Arbitration, in Contemporary and Emerging Issues on the Law of Damages and Valuation in International Investment Arbitration (Christina L. Beharry,2018)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Stavros Brekoulakis, William W. Park, Catherine A. Rogers, Queen Mary Task Force & Victoria Sahani, Report of the ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration (2018)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Lisa Bench Nieuwveld & Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration, Second Edition (2017)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Reshaping Third-Party Funding 91 Tulane Law Review (2017)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Comparing the Federal Arbitration Act and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, in International Arbitration in the United States (aurence Shore, Tai-Heng Cheng, Jenelle E. La Chiusa, Lawrence Schaner, Mara V. J. Senn, and Liang-Ying Tan,2017)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Judging Third-Party Funding 63 UCLA Law Review (2016)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Harmonizing Third-Party Litigation Funding Regulation 36 Cardozo Law Review (2015)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Litigation Funding and the Dodd-Frank Act 16 Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law (2014)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Victoria Sahani, Recent Developments in Third-Party Funding 30 Journal of International Arbitration (2013)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Lisa Bench Nieuwveld & Victoria Sahani, Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration (2012)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Jason Fry & Victoria Sahani, The 2012 ICC Rules of Arbitration, in Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers (2011) (Arthur W. Rovine,2012)
    Scholarly Commons

Activities & Engagements

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Courses

LAW JD 873

Civil Procedure

4 credits

Examines the structure and function of civil procedure and the requirements of due process of law.


FALL 2026: LAW JD 873 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue,Thu 10:40 am 12:40 pm 4 Anya Bernstein
FALL 2026: LAW JD 873 B1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue,Thu 2:10 pm 4:10 pm 4 Naomi M. Mann
FALL 2026: LAW JD 873 C1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Mon,Wed 2:10 pm 4:10 pm 4 Maya Steinitz
FALL 2026: LAW JD 873 D1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue,Wed,Thu 4:20 pm 5:35 pm 4 Portia Pedro
FALL 2026: LAW JD 873 E1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue,Thu 2:10 pm 4:10 pm 4 Victoria Sahani
FALL 2026: LAW JD 873 F1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Mon,Wed 2:10 pm 4:10 pm 4 David H. Webber
LAW JD 980

International Arbitration

3 credits

This class is intended to introduce students to the key legal and practical issues encountered when resolving disputes through international arbitration. Arbitration is a private means of dispute resolution where the parties agree to be bound by the decision of an arbitrator of their choice, whose decision in a final award has the same legal force as a court judgment or order. International arbitration is the main form of dispute resolution relating to cross-border commercial disputes and is also sometimes used in public international law contexts involving governments. This course will explore both doctrinal issues--such as what constitutes 'consent' to arbitrate and the relationship between international tribunals, who adjudicate the disputes, and national courts, who compel arbitration and enforce (or void) arbitral decisions--and policy debates, such as what issues are appropriate for resolution by private arbitrators rather than judges and the social ramifications of the lack of transparency in arbitration. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to satisfy the requirement. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar, or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who waitlist for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.


FALL 2026: LAW JD 980 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Mon 4:20 pm 6:20 pm 3 Victoria Sahani
LAW JD 984

Professional Responsibility

3 credits

This course offers an approach to the lawyer's responsibilities to clients, the profession, and the public. Topics addressed will be problems of disclosure, conflict of interest, advertising, adversary tactics, competence, attorney fees, and fiduciary duties. NOTES: This course satisfies the upper-class Professional Responsibility requirement. Eldred section: In this section, students also will learn and practice skills and test-taking strategies to answer the types of professional responsibility questions tested on bar examinations, including the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), the Uniform Bar Exam’s Multistate Performance Test (MPT), and the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam (which will be administered in most jurisdictions starting in July 2028). GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.


FALL 2026: LAW JD 984 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue,Thu 2:30 pm 3:55 pm 3 Sadiq Reza
FALL 2026: LAW JD 984 B1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Mon,Wed 11:00 am 12:25 pm 3 Tigran W. Eldred
SPRG 2027: LAW JD 984 A1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Mon,Wed 4:30 pm 5:55 pm 3 Victoria Sahani
SPRG 2027: LAW JD 984 D1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue,Thu 11:00 am 12:25 pm 3 Shira M. Diner