Darpana Sheth

Darpana Sheth serves as General Counsel of the Center for Individual Rights, which she joined in May 2025. A nationally recognized constitutional litigator with more than two decades of experience, she leads CIR’s litigation efforts, where she focuses on First Amendment cases protecting individuals’ right to think, speak, and associate freely, without government interference.

Before joining CIR, Darpana served for four years as Vice President of Litigation at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). There she built and led the organization’s litigation department—growing it from two attorneys to twenty-three while broadening its mission from a campus focus to defending free expression nationwide.

Earlier, Darpana was a Senior Attorney at the Institute for Justice, where she also directed the Institute’s National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse. She became one of the nation’s leading advocates against civil forfeiture, testifying before the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary Committees and winning a landmark class action that reformed Philadelphia’s forfeiture system and established a more than $3 million fund to compensate victims.

Before finding her calling as a public-interest litigator, Darpana served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York and practiced as a litigation associate at Chadbourne & Parke LLP in Manhattan. She also clerked for the Honorable Jerome A. Holmes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

A Philadelphia native, Darpana earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History from the University of Pennsylvania and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

Darpana also serves on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Free Speech Practice Group.