Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Shabbar was a Deputy District Attorney at the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office in Martinez, California where he was assigned first to the Misdemeanor Prosecution Team and later to the Conviction Integrity Unit where he helped respond to Senate Bill 1437 petitions and worked on a complex criminal street gang appeal. During his tenure serving on the Misdemeanor Prosecution Team, Mr. Shabbar conducted three jury trials to verdict, negotiated plea bargains, and argued numerous motions.

Mr. Shabbar began his legal career working as a judicial law clerk for San Francisco Superior Court, as a Legal Research Attorney for the Presiding Judge’s Department under the Honorable Teri L. Jackson and then as a Staff Attorney for the Asbestos/California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Department under the Honorable Cynthia Ming-mei Lee.

Mr. Shabbar earned his J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law where he served as Senior Production Editor of the Hastings Law Journal. While attending law school, Mr. Shabbar also served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Charles R. Breyer in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Throughout law school, Mr. Shabbar was an active member of the Moot Court Department where he won Best Brief in the David E. Snodgrass Appellate Advocacy Competition and helped his team secure a regional championship in the Philip C. Jessup International Law competition. He was also one out of six students selected to join the Hastings Appellate Project were he successfully represented a client before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Shabbar is conversational in Arabic.