During her tenure with Legal Aid, in 2008 she took a five-month leave to help train local lawyers with the newly created ILF office in Nepal and returned in spring 2009 with a new appreciation of criminal defenders in other countries. Prior to joining Legal Aid, Shah was a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Arthur J. Gonzalez of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and an associate at the firm Mayer Brown. She received her A.B in psychology and political science as well as her J.D. from the University of Michigan.