Affiliated Faculty

<p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Mallika Kaur is a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and co-founder and Executive Director of the Sikh Family Center, the only Sikh American organization focused on gender-based violence. An interdisciplinary author, lawyer, teacher, and community organizer, her work spans human rights, domestic violence law, trauma-informed legal practice, and Sikh community advocacy, with over two decades of direct engagement with victim-survivors of gendered violence.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">At Berkeley Law, Kaur directs the Domestic Violence & Gender-Based Violence Practicum, which places students with organizations serving survivors while engaging them in questions about violence, trauma, redress, and the law's capacity for individual and systemic transformation. She pioneered the course "Negotiating Trauma, Emotions & the Practice of Law," which has become a model for integrating emotional awareness into legal education. Additional courses include "Domestic Violence & the Law: Past and Possible Future" and the Gender-Based Violence Practicum Seminar.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Kaur's scholarship bridges legal practice and community-engaged research. Her book <strong><em>Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper</em> </strong>(Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) centers Panjab's human rights defenders and examines intergenerational and transnational trauma through the lens of faith, gender, and activism during and after the Panjab conflict. The book draws on extensive fieldwork and oral history to document stories of resistance that had been sidelined in both state and community narratives, with particular attention to women's roles in human rights advocacy. She co-edited <strong><em>How to Account for Trauma and Emotions in Law Teaching</em></strong> (Edward Elgar, 2024) with Lindsay M. Harris, offering frameworks for transformative legal pedagogy.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Her academic publications span law reviews and interdisciplinary journals. "Lessons from Punjab's Missing Girls: Toward a Global Feminist Perspective on Choice in Abortion" appeared in the <strong><em>California Law Review</em></strong> (2009), establishing an early scholarly voice on gender and reproductive justice in Panjab. More recently, "Beyond Traumatized-Client-Meets-Stoic-Lawyer: Negotiating Emotions More Holistically to Strengthen Legal Practice" was published in the <strong><em>Harvard Negotiation Law Review</em></strong> (2024), and "A Surprising Ally: Harnessing the Power of Procedure in Domestic Violence Tort Cases" (with Andrew D. Bradt) appeared in the <strong><em>Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice</em></strong> (2024). Additional scholarship includes "Fear None Frighten None: Sikhs in the U.S. and Gender Based Violence" (with Deep Jodhka, <strong><em>Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly</em></strong>, 2024), "Negotiating Trauma & the Law: Maybe We Won't 'Shake It Off'" (<strong><em>California Law Review Online</em></strong>, 2020), "Coercive Confusion: The Nexus of Domestic Violence & Custody in the Time of COVID-19" (with Kelly Behre, <strong><em>Domestic Violence Report</em></strong>, 2020), "An Exploratory Framework for Community-Led Research to Address Intimate Partner Violence" (<strong><em>Journal of Family Violence</em></strong>, 2018), and "Powerful Pawns of the Kashmir Conflict" (<strong><em>Asian & Pacific Migration Journal</em></strong>, 2009). She co-edited <strong><em>Conflicted Democracies and Gendered Violence: The Right to Heal</em> </strong>(2015) and co-authored <strong><em>Access to Justice for Women: India's Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict and Social Upheaval</em> </strong>through Berkeley Law's International Human Rights Law Clinic (2015).</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Kaur writes extensively for public media, with work appearing in <strong><em>Foreign Policy</em></strong>, the <strong><em>Washington Post</em></strong>, <strong><em>Ms. Magazine</em></strong>, the <strong><em>Harvard Kennedy School Review</em></strong>, <strong><em>Guernica</em></strong>, <strong><em>The Diplomat</em></strong>, <strong><em>Scroll.in</em></strong>, <strong><em>The Wire</em></strong>, and the <strong><em>Hindustan Times</em></strong>. She has published a substantial series of interviews on negotiating trauma across the legal profession in the <strong><em>ABA Journal</em> </strong>and the <strong><em>Daily Journal</em></strong>, interviewing judges, public defenders, immigration attorneys, human rights scholars, and legal managers. She trains lawyers and non-lawyers on cultural humility, elimination of bias, and negotiating trauma.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">As co-founder (2009) and Executive Director (since 2021) of the Sikh Family Center, Kaur has built the organization into a national resource providing a Panjabi-English helpline, culturally grounded safety planning, community advocate training, and prevention programming. Her approach combines grassroots community power with research and institutional partnerships, reflecting her conviction that what happens inside a home is intimately connected to what happens inside communities as a whole. In South Asia, she has worked on farmer suicides, female feticide, and transitional justice; in the United States, on post-9/11 violence, civil remedies for intimate violence, policing, political asylum, and racial discrimination.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Kaur received her J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, her M.P.P. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and her B.A. from the University of Chicago.</p>

Domestic violence law and civil remedies for intimate partner violence, with particular attention to procedural innovation, coercive control, and the intersections of gender, race, and immigration status. Trauma-informed legal practice and pedagogy, including how lawyers, judges, and legal managers negotiate primary and secondary trauma across professional settings. Gender-based violence in Sikh and South Asian communities, combining community-led research with culturally grounded prevention and advocacy. Human rights, transitional justice, and the gendered dimensions of state violence and political conflict in Panjab, drawing on oral history and fieldwork with survivors and human rights defenders.