Tala Hartsough, Attorney

Tala Hartsough graduated magna cum laude from UC Hastings College of the Law in 2003. She then joined UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law as an International Human Rights Law Fellow. Ms. Hartsough was a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Expedited Removal Study Team, contributing to a Congressionally-authorized report on the treatment and detention of asylum seekers. Following her work with USCIRF, Ms. Hartsough worked at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies.

During law school, Ms. Hartsough interned with the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and the Civil Justice Clinic. She researched religion-based asylum claims, published an article on trafficked women in the Hastings Women’s Law Journal, and interned at the San Francisco Office of the Public Defender. Prior to her study of law, Ms. Hartsough studied and worked in Zimbabwe, focusing on the effects of the country’s economic policies on the poor.