Position Title
Acting Professor of Law
Nila Bala joined the faculty at UC Davis School of Law in 2023. Her research focuses on children’s rights and the criminal justice system, as well as emerging technologies. At King Hall, she teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and Children and the Law. In 2024, she was selected as a UC Davis Public Scholarship Faculty Fellow.
Her recent scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Boston College Law Review, the Federal Sentencing Reporter, and the New York University Review for Law & Social Change, among other journals. Her recent articles have been selected for the 2024 Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum and the 2025 Junior Scholars Conference at the University of Michigan. Her essays for broader audiences have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Slate, Newsweek, and elsewhere.
Before entering law teaching, she was the Director of Legislative Initiatives and a Senior Attorney at the Policing Project at New York University School of Law. Previously, she was the Assistant Director of Criminal Justice Policy at R Street Institute where she led R Street’s criminal justice policy to advance reforms in juvenile and economic justice.
Bala previously served as an assistant public defender in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to handling more than 1,000 cases in her tenure, she also helped lead a bail reform project to address problems in the city’s money bail system. Earlier in her career, Bala clerked for Judge Keith P. Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She was a recipient of the Yale Public Interest Law Fellowship, and she assisted juveniles with sealing their records in Santa Clara County, California.
Bala received her bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University, graduating with distinction. She completed her J.D. at Yale Law School.
- B.A., Stanford University, 2008
- J.D., Yale Law School, 2012
- Nominated for Distinguished Teaching Award, 2024
- Stanford Digital Civil Society Fellow, 2022-2023
- Rockwood Movement Leaders Fellow, 2020-2021
- FASPE Distinguished Fellow Award for Professional Ethics, 2020
- Law Clerk for Hon. Keith Ellison, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, 2012-13
- Children and the Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Evidence
- Technology and the Law
Publications
Policing Children’s Data 103 Wash. U.L. Rev. – (2025).
Parent-Child Privilege as Resistance, 68 B.C. L. REV. 2629 (2024).
Who Owns Children’s DNA, 122 MICH. L. REV. 457 (2023).
COVID-19 Vaccination as a Condition of Federal Community Supervision, 34 FED. SENT. R. 334 (2022).
The Dangers of Facial Recognition in our Children’s Classrooms, 18 DUKE L. & TECH. REV. 249 (2020).
Desmond’s Law: Imprecise Language Makes for Inadequate Advocacy, 55 HARV. J. ON LEGIS. ONLINE 500 (2018).
Judicial Factfinding in the Wake of Alleyne, 39 N.Y.U. REV. L. & SOC. CHANGE 1 (2015).
The Children in Families First Act: Overlooking International Law and the Best Interests of the Child, 66 STAN. L. REV. ONLINE 135 (2014).
The Hidden Costs of the European Court of Human Rights’ Surrogacy Decision, 40 YALE J. OF INT’L L. ONLINE 16 (2014).