Simin has dedicated her entire career advocating for racial justice and systems change in communities experiencing poverty, racism, violence, generational trauma, and incarceration. After practicing as a trial attorney at our Office for many years, she joined the leadership team to help establish the office’s strategic priorities, which included developing and implementing a holistic defense program. With over 25 years of legal and policy work, Simin has extensive experience building organizational and staff capacity, managing program evaluations, and collaborating with city agencies and community-based organizations. She has managed large philanthropic, local, state, and federal grants for key initiatives that offer solutions to reduce system reliance on incarceration. In her role as a director, she was responsible for expanding the Clean Slate Program and establishing the Children of Incarcerated Parents Program, Social Work Unit, Early Representation Unit, and specialty courts focusing on rehabilitation and healing. Simin has offered strategic advice to city departments throughout the state and has provided technical assistance and training to jurisdictions around the country seeking to replicate the highly effective programs in San Francisco. She has also participated in numerous local and statewide legislative reforms, budget advocacy, and recruiting and hiring efforts that promote diversity and equity.
From 2020-2022, Simin was the Chief of Programs and Initiatives at the SF District Attorney’s office, under Chesa Boudin, a former SF Deputy Public Defender, who led an unprecedented effort to transform the criminal legal system. As a member of the executive leadership team, Simin helped develop strategic and policy priorities, initiated diversion and restorative justice programs, led efforts to reduce prosecution and incarceration of children, and implemented innovative programs to address racial disparities and mass incarceration.
Simin is bilingual and bi-cultural (Gujarati), raised in a Shia Ismaili Muslim family. She was born in Tanzania and immigrated with her family to the US when she was 10 years old. After graduating from UCLA with a B.A. in Political Science, she attended UC Law, San Francisco. She has served as a board member on the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and on various criminal justice councils, commissions, and taskforces in San Francisco. Simin lives in Berkeley with her husband, and has three kids in college.