Banafsheh Akhlaghi
Banafsheh Akhlaghi is a pioneering civil and human rights attorney, educator and social entrepreneur. She has learned through her work how decisions we make globally affect us locally. For ten years, she has been listening to varying perspectives, without judgment, and finding collective solutions, so we can move forward together.
Banafsheh immigrated to the United States from her native Iran with her parents at the age of five and started her career as a professor of Constitutional Law at the John F. Kennedy School of Law.
Shortly after 9/11, Banafsheh received a phone call from a former student seeking legal help for his friend who was being interrogated by the FBI for a third time. What she witnessed in that case convinced her to answer the call to advise and counsel thousands of others on a pro bono and sliding scale basis. Her caseload grew, so she left her teaching position and created her own law practice, Akhlaghi and Associates.
In just over three years, Banafsheh represented, advised, and consulted clients on matters including deportation proceedings, detentions, racial/ethnic/religious profiling, asylum relief, as well as civil rights.
In September of 2004, Banafsheh received another disturbing phone call. A teacher was singling out an Iraqi second grade student, calling him “evil” and other names and making him sit on the classroom floor. Banafsheh took on this and other cases like it, as it was clear the issues she had seen in government had become systemic.
So she decided to broaden the scope of Akhlaghi and Associates, transforming her practice into the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement (NLSCA). NLSCA has since emerged as a leading advocate of civil rights and human rights.
With NLSCA, Banafsheh represented, advised, and consulted over 3,200 individuals in the practice areas of: selective immigration enforcement, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) background check delays, security clearance denials, no fly lists, unwarranted FBI surveillance and interrogation, employment discrimination, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) violations, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Military Commission Act.
Banafsheh has also worked with international clients, including the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, including the 2003 Amnesty International Racial Profiling Hearings, and she regularly conducts cultural Sensitivity Trainings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She is also a Commissioner for the California State Bar Legal Services Trust Fund Commission and was the director of the West Region for Amnesty International.
She has won several awards for her work, including the Fred Korematsu Civil Rights Award and Sisters of Fire Human Rights Champion Award. Banafsheh was named “Top 100 Leading Lawyers in California” and “Top 100 Most Influential Lawyers in California” by the Daily Journal. She was also nominated for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2008 and received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives the same year.
Banafsheh received her B.A. from the University of San Francisco, with attendance at Cambridge University, and her Juris Doctorate from Tulane University. She is a member of the California and San Francisco Bar Associations. She lives in Mill Valley.