Shani attended public school just outside of Boston and later went on to attend Brown University, Harvard Law School and Oxford University.  After graduating from law school, Professor King spent a year in the Dominican Republic studying the impact of an educational reform effort on rural elementary school children.

After his time in the Dominican Republic, Professor King practiced white-collar criminal defense and securities litigation in New York City for a large corporate law firm and later for a small white-collar litigation boutique.  Professor King then returned to public interest work in San Francisco, where he represented children in human rights, immigration, school discipline, dependency and guardianship proceedings.

Professor King taught at the University of Florida Levin College of Law from 2007-2022, where he directed the Center on Children and Families.  At Rutgers, he teaches Family Law, Immigration Law, International Children’s Rights, Children and the Law, as well courses on Race and the Law.

Professor King’s primary area of interest is children’s rights, but he covers other substantive areas that intersect with the rights of children, including immigration law and policy, educational law, and race and the law.  Professor King is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Children’s Rights Law and is also an award-winning author of children’s books.