Rya Fishman joined the firm in 2024 as a paralegal. Her interest in law focuses on civil rights, constitutional law, criminal law, and advocacy. She looks forward to learning more about antitrust practice and resuming her attention to plaintiff’s litigation in order to bring justice to those impacted by anticompetitive practices.
Rya joined the firm after working as a Public Defender in the Greater Seattle Area after graduating from law school. While there, she handled trials, arraignments, evidentiary hearings, and sentencing proceedings. She was involved in direct client representation, intake meetings, and indigency screenings. In addition to researching, drafting, filing, and arguing motions, she also reviewed bodycam, discovery, and negotiated resolutions with prosecutors.
Rya’s previous experience includes being a legal intern for the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. She is a former lead legal assistant for a San Francisco-based civil litigation firm where she assisted with civil litigation and appeals, labor and employment, and class action cases.
During law school, Rya was founder and president of the Gonzaga University Law Innocence Club. She was co-author of The Civil Rights Advocacy Clinic Disproportionately Report and a contributor to the 2021 Report to the Washington Supreme Court. She received the school’s 2022 Pro Bono Distinction Award and a Certificate of Civil and Human Rights from its Civil Rights Advocacy Clinic.
While an undergraduate at the University of San Francisco, Rya authored “Beyond the Prison Bar: How California Prison Institutionalization Effects the Formerly Incarcerated” and had internships with Prison Radio and NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Rya volunteers her time for death penalty abolition and wrongful convictions work and other pro bono efforts, primarily with various non-profit and advocacy groups.
Rya is a member of the Missouri State Bar Association and the San Francisco Bar Association.