About Chaya
Chaya Baliga built a path to law that began in the sciences. She earned a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2006 and completed her J.D. at Santa Clara University School of Law in 2012. At Santa Clara she also received a Public Interest & Social Justice Law Certificate with an emphasis in Health Law. Those academic choices set a steady throughline from biology to legal practice.
Her earliest legal work placed her inside a hospital system. In 2012 she served as a legal intern in Claims & Litigation and Risk Management at Stanford University Medical Center. The placement exposed her to clinical risk issues and the procedural side of health-care disputes. The next year she moved into private practice, joining Clyde & Co LLP as an associate in 2013. There she handled matters that drew on both her litigation training and her interest in regulated environments.
A decade into her career she shifted toward privacy and corporate counsel work. In 2022 she joined Google as Privacy Counsel. In that role she handled privacy and data protection matters across business lines. Her work has involved interpreting privacy rules, advising operational teams, and supporting compliance and incident response processes. The role draws on technical and regulatory threads she developed earlier in health law and hospital risk management.
Alongside her work at Google, Baliga has taken on a teaching role. In 2022 she served as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Her classroom service reflects an interest in training newer lawyers and engaging with legal education, connecting practical counsel experience to academic discussion.
Baliga is admitted to practice in California. Her profile ties together a science background, health-law training, early experience in hospital risk and litigation, and later roles in privacy counsel and teaching. She has moved steadily from clinical legal work into corporate privacy and compliance, while maintaining a foothold in legal education. She currently practices as Privacy Counsel at Google and teaches as an adjunct at UC Hastings; her practice deals with privacy, data protection, and legal issues at the intersection of health and law.
