Kausalya M. Hegde
Attorney & Mediator
Kausalya M. Hegde
Attorney & Mediator
About
Ms.Kausalya M.Hegde is a dual licensed attorney and founded Hegde Law Practice.
Ms. Hegde is licensed to practice law in California and India.
She earned her LLM/Master of Laws from Santa Clara University School of Law, USA and her LLB/Bachelor of Laws from Bangalore University, India.
Ms. Hegde is a recipient of the Cali Award for 'Mediation Theory and Practice' during her LLM program and has completed rigorous courses in Mediation, Negotiation and Arbitration.
Experience as a Lawyer:
Ms. Hegde has over 18 years’ combined experience as a lawyer in California and India and has practiced employment law, administrative law/disciplinary inquiry appeals, family law, intellectual property law and estate planning law.
Experience as a Mediator/Neutral:
Ms. Hegde has functioned as a mediator/neutral in a variety of cases during her career. She has mediated a settlement in an employment law case for Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) California by devising a strategy to communicate with the parties and helping them identify their interests. Also, during her law practice in India, she was appointed by the Karnataka State High Court (State’s Supreme Court) as a neutral court commissioner and amicus curiae (neutral friend of the court) in a wide variety of cases like landlord-tenant, education, land use, environmental/public interest matters, where she conducted extensive research as an impartial investigator and submitted comprehensive reports to the court identifying the problems/interests and suggesting practicable solutions. The court decided most of those cases on the basis of her reports.
Because of her law practice experience, she has the skills to employ evaluative approach in mediation if needed.
Ms. Hegde's legal career spans two countries, two legal systems, and more than two decades of accumulated wisdom about how law intersects with human experience. Before she moved to the US, she practiced law in India. She passed the California Bar in December 2008 — her child one year old at the time — and never stopped building from there. She pursued an LLM in the United States, with a focus on IP/ Privacy law and ADR/mediation. Prior to that, she had also volunteered at a domestic violence restraining order clinic at San Mateo — working directly with survivors seeking protective orders — a chapter that sharpened both her advocacy skills and her understanding of what it means to serve someone at their most vulnerable. She has also devoted time to estate planning volunteer work serving Northern California communities. Her relaunch into private practice is the result of deliberate preparation — and a clear sense of purpose about the clients she is here to serve. She works with a small number of clients at a time, intentionally, because she believes legal counsel done well requires presence, not volume.
How I Help
Four focused service areas, one consistent commitment: legal guidance that is built around your actual situation- Estate Planning, Mediation, Employment & IP Law Advisory