Avantika Shastri, Attorney

Avantika Shastri joined Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, LLP in 2004. Her practice focuses primarily on deportation defense, asylum, family-based immigration, and naturalization. She has represented clients in immigration matters before the federal courts, the administrative agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security. She has also acted as co-counsel on amicus briefs before the Third, Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Shastri represented individual clients and engaged in broader advocacy and class-action litigation in support of immigrant rights through her work at Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, a community-based social justice organization in San Francisco; the Immigration and Refugee Clinic at Harvard Law School; and the California Asylum Representation Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley Law School. She also served as an extern for the Honorable Magistrate Judge Edward M. Chen at the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

Ms. Shastri has also volunteered and worked at Narika, a Berkeley-based community organization that supports survivors of domestic violence in the South Asian community, as well as other local and national organizations serving immigrant communities.

Ms. Shastri received her law and undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.