Professor Sharifi has been a faculty member at the law school since 2008 and currently teaches Evidence and Advanced Evidence. His scholarly interests concern criminal litigation, and his work is published in The American Criminal Law Review, The American Journal of Trial Advocacy, and the Akron Law Review. He was appointed Director of the National Trial Team from 2015-2024. Since assuming that role, CUA has achieved numerous distinctions in advocacy and won the national championship at the 2019 National Trial Competition. He has twice been honored by the student body as Adjunct Professor of the Year.

Professor Sharifi is an attorney in the Appellate Division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, where he represents indigent defendants on direct appeal in Maryland’s appellate courts. Prior to that role, he was a criminal trial and appellate attorney in private practice and handled numerous highly publicized cases. He argued the landmark homicide appeal of State v. Jones, reversing precedent and eliminating altogether a theory of murder in Maryland.

Professor Sharifi earned an LL.M. degree from The George Washington University Law Center and a J.D. from The Catholic University, Columbus School of Law. As a law student, he founded the law school’s chapter of the Innocence Project and served as its first president. As a student member of the National Trial Team, he was a regional champion and national semi- finalist. Professor Sharifi is admitted to practice in Maryland’s state and federal courts, the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.