Sujatha Baliga’s work is characterized by an equal dedication to victims and persons accused of crime. A former victim’s advocate and public defender, Sujatha was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2008, which she used to spearhead a successful restorative juvenile diversion program in Alameda County, CA. As the former director of Community Justice Works, she expanded and institutionalized the program she began through her Soros Fellowship. Sujatha has served as a consultant to the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, has taught restorative justice to undergraduates and law students, and is a frequent guest lecturer at academic institutions and conferences.

Today, as director of the restorative justice project at NCCD, Sujatha assists communities in implementing restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance school discipline policies. She also provides technical assistance to the US Attorney General’s Task Force on Childhood Exposure to Violence.

Sujatha earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and her JD from the University of Pennsylvania. She has held federal clerkships with the Honorable William K. Sessions, III, former chair of the US Sentencing Commission and with the Honorable Martha Vázquez. A national voice in restorative justice, she was honored as Northeastern University Law School’s Daynard Fellow, featured in the New York Times Magazine, and has been a guest on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.