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sujatha baliga's work is characterized by an equal dedication to crime survivors and people who’ve caused harm. A former victim advocate and public defender, baliga was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2008 which she used to launch a pre-charge restorative juvenile diversion program. In her most recent position as the Director of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, sujatha helped communities across the nation implement restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance school discipline policies. Today, she's dedicated to using this approach to end child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. sujatha is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences; she speaks publicly and inside prisons about her own experiences as a survivor of child sexual abuse and her path to forgiveness. She is currently on sabbatical, working on her first book. sujatha earned her A.B. from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held two federal district court clerkships. She was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. For more on sujatha her website is sujathabaliga.com.
Yvonne Poon graduated from Columbia Law School in 2020. She is based in Singapore and has been a deputy public prosecutor with the Attorney-General's Chambers since 2011. Since her exposure to mindfulness practice with the Mindfulness Program at Columbia Law School, she has been an enthusiastic follower and is a regular attendee at each week's sessions. From nudging snails off sidewalks to taking a holistic, person-centric approach to her criminal practice, Yvonne believes it is always possible to be kind.
