Shari attended Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and graduated with honors.  Dead broke buried with a boatload of student loans, she  landed a job at an Aviation Law firm handling airplane crashes. It was the only firm that offered her a job. All her clients were dead. Shari was the only female lawyer in the firm and the only non-pilot attorney. All the men in the firm had flown in the military or had been commercial airline pilots or civilian cargo pilots.

Shari began moonlighting at a women’s domestic violence clinic because she told herself that she cared about women’s issues. But today, she realizes it was so much more. A social worker heard about her work at the clinic and visited her unexpectedly one day. She asked Shari to take “Katie’s case”. Katie was a three-year-old child who was being sexually abused by her father during weekend visitation. At first Shari refused, because she didn’t want to get involved. Once she met little Katie, Shari couldn’t refuse to help her. During the process of taking on Katie’s case, haunting memories from her childhood began to surface and from that moment on her life’s mission was changed forever.

Television Movie Made About Shari’s Life: “Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story

Shari own inspirational story was the subject of an NBC Television Movie entitled: Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story. It was in the top 10 highest rated television movies in NBC’s history. The movie about Shari Karney attracted 12 million viewers in the United States and 18 million viewers worldwide. Men and women, who had never told a soul about what happened to them as children, were breaking the silence and speaking out. Shari gave out her contact information, and spoke to anyone who wanted to connect with her, personally.

NBC did a special satellite hookup with Shari where she interacted with viewers and appeared on 115 television shows across the United States in a two-hour time period. Survivors, spouses’ of survivors and family members were jamming the phone lines of their local television stations all wanting to speak with Shari. With compassion and a sense of deep connection, Shari spent 6 more hours speaking to anyone who wanted to talk with her personally, off the air.