Susun Kim

Susun Kim graduated from New York University School of Law in 1991, she worked for two private law firms before choosing public interest law in 1997.  She specializes in representing immigrant domestic violence survivors in family law matters.  Having immigrated to the United States at age 17, she has a keen understanding of the legal needs of limited English speaking immigrants and has been working to develop community resources to address those needs.  In 1998, she founded the Korean American Coalition to End Domestic Abuse, a group of Korean women from all walks of life committed to raising community awareness about domestic violence.  Ms. Kim has also worked with a health organization, La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland, to set up a family law clinic for La Clinica’s patients who have experienced domestic violence.  Further, recognizing the special needs of deaf survivors of domestic violence, she helped obtain funding from the Department of Justice, Violence Against Women Office and create Deaf Women’s Legal Project, which provided holistic legal services to deaf women.  Susun joined Bay Area Legal Aid (BayLegal) in October of 2004 as Managing Attorney of the Contra Costa Regional Office.  BayLegal is the lead provider of free legal services to low income people in the Bay Area.  The Contra Costa Regional Office has its main office in Richmond, operates a satellite office in Pittsburg and runs restraining order clinics at different locations around the county.  Since joining BayLegal, Ms. Kim has shown her commitment to serving underserved communities and her ability to develop programs and resources.  She has helped set up a restraining order clinic in the Monument Corridor area, a low income area populated by many Latino immigrants.  She has also begun working on language access projects with Laotian community groups