Nila Bala

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 Evidence and Children and the Law. Her recent scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, Boston College Law Review, the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Duke Law and Technology Review, and the New York University Review for Law & Social Change, among other journals. Her most recent article, Parent-Child Privilege as Resistance, was selected for the 2024 Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Her essays for broader audiences have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, 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 Fellow, 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 JD at Yale Law School.