Protima has been an advocate for gender justice and is the newly appointed Director for the Office of Women’s Policy at Santa Clara County. Working for the County Executive, her office works to bring a gender lens to policy decision-making, building a pipeline to leadership, and demand equity in governance. Prior to that, she was the Managing Attorney and Regional Counsel for Immigration at Bay Area Legal Aid, where she started as a staff attorney litigating on family law and immigration cases for survivors of domestic violence, as well as allied legal relief in areas of public benefits, housing preservation, and economic justice. Most recently she co-counseled on a precedent setting case in California, Kumar v. Kumar, a complex immigration and family law cross-over case. She also led the firm-wide post-graduate Fellowship program to shepherd and develop fellowship proposals through the national selection process. She is also one of 17 lawyers nation-wide appointed as a Commissioner to the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence to work on issues impacting delivery of legal services to survivors, where she is also a litigation skills faculty. She also serves as faculty for Practicing Law Institute in San Francisco, training on issues relating to housing rights for immigrants and representation of domestic violence survivors in family courts as well as on understanding personal bias, working with diverse populations, and on domestic violence awareness. Being passionate about giving back to the legal profession, Protima has served as the Chair of San Mateo County Bar Association's Diversity Committee (2014), has been integral to the work of BayLegal's diversity initiative, and the Racial Justice Initiative. Prior to joining BayLegal, Protima was the Public Policy specialist for California Partnership to End Domestic Violence in Sacramento, California where she worked on legislation and advocacy on behalf of agencies serving survivors and their families.

Education: Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law, 2001; National Law School of India University Practice Areas: Family Law, Immigration Law, Housing protections for DV survivors.

Bar Admissions: California, 2003; India, 1999

Awards: South Asian Bar Association Northern California Community Impact Award (2014), South Asian Bar Association Northern California Foundation Public Interest Attorney of the year (2012), Woman of Color Scholarship from National Network to End Domestic Violence (2007)

Linda Tam is a Clinical Instructor affiliated with Berkeley Law School and the Director of the Immigration Clinic at the East Bay Community Law Center, a non-profit in Berkeley, California with the dual mission of providing legal services to the low-income community and training the next generation of lawyers.  The Immigration Clinic provides free immigration services to low-income immigrants, many of whom are HIV-positive or families of children with chronic health problems.  She represents and counsels clients on a wide variety of immigration issues: political asylum, U visas, deportation defense, DACA, VAWA, NACARA, SIJS, naturalization, immigration effects of criminal convictions, and benefits eligibility, including on behalf of detained clients.  She is a contributor on immigration law to “AIDS and the Law,” the leading treatise on HIV legal issues.  She has spoken at regional and national conferences, and was awarded the 2009 Legal Services Award by the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club.  Ms. Tam is a graduate of Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall).