Mallika Kaur directs the Domestic Violence Field Placement program at Berkeley Law and teaches courses that engage students in questions about violence, trauma, redress, and the law’s possible efficacy towards individual and systemic transformation.
An interdisciplinary author, lawyer, teacher, and community organizer, Kaur’s work and scholarship focuses on human rights with a specialization in gender and minority issues. She has worked with victim-survivors of gendered violence for two decades, including as an emergency room crisis counselor, expert witness on domestic violence and sexual violence, researcher, and attorney.
Mallika is the co-founder and Executive Director (as of 2021) of Sikh Family Center, the only Sikh American organization focused on gender-based violence. Working with local civil society, academic institutions, advocacy organizations, and government agencies, she combines research, advocacy, scholarship, and the law as an approach towards sustainable change.
Mallika received her Master in Public Policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard and JD from UC Berkeley Law School, where she pioneered her course and work on “Negotiating Trauma, Emotions & the Practice of Law.”
Mallika believes what happens inside a home is intimately connected to what happens inside communities as a whole: since struggles are interconnected, commitment to justice must never be selective. In South Asia, she has worked on a range of issues including farmer suicides, female feticide, and transitional and transformative justice. In the United States, Mallika has worked on issues including post-9/11 violence, civil remedies for intimate violence, policing practices, political asylum, and racial discrimination.
Mallika is the author of the book “Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). She writes regularly for online and print media as well as academic publications; her work has been published in Foreign Policy, Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, and California Law Review, among others. Mallika trains lawyers as well as non-lawyers on cultural humility, elimination of bias, and negotiating trauma, towards more ethical, robust and fulfilling practice.
She is the co-editor of the new book on transformative legal pedagogy: “How to Account for Trauma and Emotions in Legal Teaching” (June 2024).
Education
B.A., University of Chicago
J.D., UC Berkeley School of Law
M.P.P., Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Mallika Kaur is teaching the following course in Fall 2024:
• 282.1 sec. 001 - Domestic Violence & the Law: Past and Possible Future
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Spring 2025 | 283Q sec. 001 | Domestic Violence Field Placement Seminar: Ethics in Practice | 287.11 sec. 001 | Negotiating Trauma, Emotions & the Practice of Law | Spring 2024 | 283Q sec. 001 | Domestic Violence Field Placement Classroom Component: Ethics in Practice | View Teaching Evaluation | 287.11 sec. 001 | Negotiating Trauma, Emotions & the Practice of Law | View Teaching Evaluation | 295.6J sec. 001 | Domestic Violence Field Placement | View Teaching Evaluation | Fall 2023 | 282.1 sec. 001 | Domestic Violence Law Seminar | View Teaching Evaluation | Spring 2023 | 283Q sec. 001 | Domestic Violence Field Placement Classroom Component: Ethics in Practice | 287.11 sec. 001 | Negotiating Trauma, Emotions & the Practice of Law | View Teaching Evaluation | 295.6J sec. 001 | Domestic Violence Field Placement |
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Column: Negotiating Trauma & the Law
Lecturer Mallika Kaur interviews Clinical Professor Ty Alper, Associate Director of Death Penalty Clinic, about representing clients on death row, being hyper-aware of racial privilege and training next gen lawyers,
‘This has to end peacefully’: California’s Punjabi farmers rally behind India protests
Lecturer Mallika Kaur discusses the farmers’ protests in India and the history that’s lead to widespread distrust of the government
Let’s talk about India’s farmer protests
Lecturer Mallika Kaur says the fight of the farmers in India is, at the heart of it, a fight against big monopolies owning everything we need to survive with dignity: medication, transportation, education, and food
Op-Ed: In a traditional Lohri song about a folk hero, echoes of Punjab’s ongoing struggle for a fair deal
Lecturer Mallika Kaur writes the rebellion of Dulla Bhatti is a reminder of the region’s long history of agrarian protest – and its fight for justice
Op-Ed: Unprecedented Farmers Protests in India: Lest We Miss This Feminist Moment
Lecturer Mallika Kaur explores the farmers’ protests in India and says women’s participation challenges the narrative that the protest is only about angry men, dangerous and entirely unwilling to listen to reason
Why Farmers Drove a Tractor to Protest at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco
Lecturer Mallika Kaur discusses the unprecedented farmers protests in India and the solidarity protests across CA
Column: An Interview with Protima Pandey of Santa Clara County
Lecturer Mallika Kaur, as part of her ongoing series exploring managing trauma and the demands of lawyering, explores the intersection of law and policy and highlights the dire need for leading by example
Column: Negotiating Trauma and the Law
Lecturer Mallika Kaur, as part of her ongoing series exploring managing trauma and the demands of lawyering, speaks to Berkeley Law alum Taina Gomez, Solano County DPD about self care, the culture that compounds trauma for clients and lawyers of color and what it means to be committed to social justice as a child of immigrants.
Victims Must Not Be Lost in Domestic Violence and Policing Debates
Lecturer Mallika Kaur asks what “defund the police” means in terms of response to domestic violence incidents, currently the single largest category of calls received by police?
Column: Negotiating Trauma and the Law
Lecturer Mallika Kaur, as part of her ongoing series exploring managing trauma and the demands of lawyering, speaks to critical race theorist and feminist legal scholar Angela P. Harris about challenging homogeneity of the profession and academy; the genius and struggle of women scholars; emotional intelligence for strong lawyering; the trap of “diversity” without power-sharing; and the potential of Juneteenth, 2020
Column: Negotiating Trauma and the Law
Lecturer Mallika Kaur, as part of her ongoing series exploring managing trauma and the demands of lawyering, interviews UC Hastings Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Column: Negotiating Trauma & Law
Lecturer Mallika Kaur interviews a Fresno-based immigration lawyer to discuss the importance of giving clients more control and how to stay healthy while doing trauma inducing work, as part of her ongoing series exploring managing trauma and the demands of lawyering
Column: Negotiating Trauma & the Law
Lecturer Mallika Kaur, as part of her ongoing series exploring managing trauma and the demands of lawyering, interviews Dylan Nicole de Kervor of the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice