Announcing the 2020 CZI Movement Leaders Fellows
Nila Bala | Associate Director of Criminal Justice Policy, R Street
Nila is the assistant director of criminal justice policy and a resident senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a center right think tank based in D.C. She helps lead criminal justice policy areas generally, and specifically develops policy to advance reforms in juvenile and economic justice. Nila 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. She also was a recipient of the Yale Public Interest Law Fellowship. As a part of that program, she assisted juveniles with sealing their records, particularly those with sex offenses, while serving the Public Defender Office of Santa Clara County, California. She lives with her husband and son in California.
