Mallika Kaur directs the Domestic Violence & Gender-Based Violence Practicum 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 courses in Spring 2025:
• 283Q sec. 001 - Domestic Violence Field Placement Seminar: Ethics in Practice
• 287.11 sec. 001 - Negotiating Trauma, Emotions & the Practice of Law
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2025 | 282.1 sec. 001 | Domestic Violence & the Law: Past and Possible Future | Fall 2024 | 282.1 sec. 001 | Domestic Violence & the Law: Past and Possible Future | View Teaching Evaluation | 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 |
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In New Book, Berkeley Law Alums Offer Blueprints for a More Inclusive Profession
Mallika Kaur ’10 and Lindsay Harris ’09 co-edited How to Account for Trauma and Emotions in Law Teaching, which makes the case for engaging — and even encouraging — emotion in the classroom and the courtroom.
Opinion: The killing of a Sikh woman in Manteca should anger all of us. This is why
“Kaur’s case should enrage us all. We are not doing nearly enough to identify and support every high-risk domestic violence survivor and victim facing interlocking vulnerabilities,” writes Mallika Kaur author, lawyer and organizer who focuses on gender and minority issues in the U.S. and South Asia. She teaches at UC Berkeley School of Law, including on domestic violence law. She is the co-founder and executive director of the Sikh Family Center.
California’s Latest Legal Change Reduces a Significant Barrier to Suing Rapists
Lecturer Mallika Kaur writes, survivors of sexual assault face tremendous power imbalances in the legal system. A new California law helps rebalance the scales.
Judge discusses negotiating trauma and the law as chief tribal court judge of Yurok Nation
Lecturer Mallika Kaur talks to Judge Abby Abinante about about negotiating trauma and the law.
10 years after Sikh temple shooting, a victim’s son and a former white supremacist speak out against hate
Mallika Kaur, lecturer and the executive director of the community outreach and advocacy organization Sikh Family Center, said there was a range of reactions from the Sikh community after the shooting, including anger and fear but also resilience. “There was absolutely the fear of being further victimized, what may happen next to our kids, what may happen to the male or female members who are wearing turbans in the community,” she said.
Review: Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab Conflict
Lecturer Mallika Kaur’s book Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper is reviewed.
Traci Feit Love continues to deliver pro bono services while negotiating through the trauma and injustices she witnesses
Lecturer Mallika Kaur interviews Traci Feit Love, about pro bono organizing efforts and Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit that grew out of a popular Facebook group she started in 2016.
Column: How to negotiate trauma during a lifetime of advocacy for domestic violence survivors
Lecturer Mallika Kaur interviews Nancy Lemon, Herma Hill Kay Lecturer, about her extensive experience in a practice area most attorneys agree is emotionally draining and personally trying
Review: Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict
Lecturer Mallika Kaur’s book Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper is reviewed.
This book recounting the violence against Sikhs is an indictment of amnesia in modern India
Lecturer Mallika Kaur’s book Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper is reviewed.
Review: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper: Mallika Kaur Traces Violence In The Punjab Conflict
Lecturer Mallika Kaur’s book Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper is reviewed.
Against Hate and Self-Hate: VAWA Must Now Be Implemented Without Cultural Biases
Lecturer Mallika Kaur writes, in order for the VAWA to truly positively affect everyone who has experienced gendered violence, it must openly examine the biases faced by minorities and provide support to grassroots initiatives
Review: Finding Humanity and Hope Within Stories of Conflict in Punjab
Lecturer Mallika Kaur’s book Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper is reviewed.
Op-ed: Justice Ajit Singh Bains, the unforgettable People’s Judge of Punjab
Lecturer Mallika Kaur highlights the life of Justice Ajit Singh Bains, one of India’s finest jurists and human rights defenders, who recently passed away
Afghan evacuee crisis adds pressure to already-stressed immigration attorneys
Lecturer Mallika Kaur comments that immigration attorneys continue advocating for traumatized clients while juggling challenges of a system that is often re-traumatizing
Column: Farmers Leading Protests in India—and the Young Feminists Camping With Them—Just Scored a Major Win. Will It Last?
Lecturer Mallika Kaur writes, after a year of unprecedented protests, farmers and agrarian laborers in India have won an unprecedented victory and are now poised to change the whole game
Column: How legal managers can negotiate trauma for themselves and others
Lecturer Mallika Kaur explores how might managers in the legal profession can redefine their leadership styles to listen and plan for primary and secondary trauma responses—in themselves and others – during an interview with Monika Kalra Varma
Column: Stopping Long Enough to Celebrate: Recent Win for Violence Survivor and Asylum-Seeker Holds Critical Lessons
Lecturer Mallika Kaur interviews Blaine Bookey, whose successful case against the DOJ on behalf of a Salvadoran woman who fled domestic violence and was seeking asylum, has brought some hope to survivors of gender-based violence
Negotiating the trauma of working with prisoners, pro bono and after hours
Lecturer Mallika Kaur explores how attorneys remain committed to work that affords few successes and often few forms of traditional validation, with Melissa Barbee, class of 2021, and public interest lawyer Taeva Shefler
Column: What negotiating trauma looks like from both sides of the bench
Lecturer Mallika Kaur talks to Judge Edward M. Chen about systemic discriminations and his decades of practice from both sides of the bench