Shaped by Experience, Grounded in Empathy
For Ava Sharifi (’25 J.D.), the concept of justice isn’t abstract or remote. The daughter of Iranian immigrants, she grew up hearing her family’s stories of surviving political unrest and oppression, and seeing the evidence of their suffering. Her aunt’s earlobes are still stretched out from when guards pulled out her earrings when she was imprisoned. Some of the men in her family are still uncomfortable in the dark because that’s how they were confined. These traumas continue to filter down through time, as do the stories of the lawyers who helped them when they were trapped and afraid.
“I’ve seen how even a little time spent in jail can affect the rest of your life,” Sharifi says, pointing to these stories as a source of her passion for criminal defense.
Sharifi and her family moved to Spokane when she was 10 years old. Since then, she’s developed a deep affinity for the city. Her father is a political science professor at Eastern Washington University and Sharifi followed in his footsteps, studying the same subject at the University of Washington. After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., hoping to make meaningful change through policy reform, but didn’t find the experience to be as fulfilling as she’d hoped.
“I was getting burnt out,” she says. “ ‘Am I just running my mouth? Am I just talking for my own ego? Am I actually helping people?’ These questions kept rolling around in my head.”
She returned to Spokane during the pandemic and used her downtime wisely. For a time, she shadowed Judge Patti Walker, an experience that taught her how personal the law can really be. She soon realized she’d found her calling to help people who are down on their luck.
Sharifi’s philosophy about our justice system has been shaped by her inherently political upbringing and her time spent travelling abroad and studying other cultures.
“There needs to be a better understanding of reasonableness and proportionality,” she says. “These are words I’ve heard since orientation of law school and that I’ll probably be debating the rest of my life. Perspective is everything when it comes to determining this.”
In her defense work, Sharifi thinks a lot about storytelling and how it will be her job to tell clear and affecting stories.
“My curiosity wants to know why,” she says. “Why did we get to this point?”
This deeply empathetic approach relies on a rigorous withholding of judgment, which Sharifi knows can open a defense attorney up to disappointment and disillusionment.
“My biggest compliment through my jobs and internships so far has been that I’m empathetic and friendly, and the clients love me for that,” she says. “And my number one criticism is that I’m too empathetic, too friendly. So, it’s a blessing and a curse.”
She knows this, too, will be a lifelong balance. When she thinks about her future and how hard it will be, she draws strength from the thought of her family’s resilience.
“They’re not proud of me because I’m becoming a lawyer,” Sharifi says. “They’re proud because I actually listened to their stories, and I didn’t just cry about them. I’m using them to help other people.”