Best and Brightest winner Evelyn Sittner is  a volunteer defense attorney. Her mentor, personal injury attorney Gordan Heuser, speaks of watching her “meticulously preparing for trials, crafting persuasive arguments, and providing compassionate representation.”

Heuser continues his high praise of this young lawyer by telling us her efforts “reflect her profound empathy for others and her developing understanding of the legal system.”

On behalf of the nonprofit Forge Evolution-Teen Court, Sittner represents local teens who have found themselves in trouble with the law. Executive director Morgan Mote says of her efforts:

“Evelyn is an exquisite young lady who has the utmost ability to recognize need in others. Her empathy for young people has surpassed most adults. We are extremely proud of the work that she does in the Pikes Peak Region.”

In her own words, Evelyn describes the experience of being in the courtroom. “I was arguing in front of a full courtroom; a district court judge, a jury, opposing counsel, mentor attorneys, and additional spectators. I conducted my direct and cross examinations of witnesses, entered evidence, and made and responded to objections.”

She has done this many times. However, the difference between attorney Heuser and attorney Sittner is that she is a volunteer. Evelyn hasn’t passed the bar exam yet.

She has to finish high school first.

Sittner told us that the challenges while being a defense attorney for Teen Court has led her to realize that “every person has a story — a story that deserves to be told.” So let’s tell her story first.

Evelyn is the child of an immigrant who left India to escape the caste system. As she explained to us, “In India, the business that your family works in becomes your permanent place in society, with little opportunity or option to deviate and start your own life.”

Her mother came to the United States sponsored by her family and became an accountant. Freed from her former caste barriers, she raised Evelyn to believe that there were no barriers in the way of her dreams.

Sittner is grateful for this experience, declaring, “My family’s history has inspired me to work toward the ideals set forth by the founders in the Constitution of a government and land that does not distinguish amongst its citizens based on where they came from, who their parents were, or what their family’s current financial circumstance are.”

Evelyn has a hatred of the caste system that enters her work locally to advocate for the teens that she represents in court. “Teens struggle with the burdens imposed on them by broken homes, addiction in families, parents who are not present and even the neighborhood they grew up in.”

She calls the inability to escape such burdens an “invisible caste system.” She vows to fight to eliminate this system through working in the law to defend teens caught in these burdens and barriers to progressing.

Currently Sittner is a student at Thomas MacLaren State Charter School in School District 11. CU Boulder declared Sittner to be their choice of Outstanding Colorado High School Student.

Evelyn currently has a grade-point average of 4.85%. She is a National Merit commended scholar. In addition, Sittner has won the Presidential Service Award (Silver Medal) from AmeriCorps.

Patrick Henry College in Virginia has accepted Sittner, and she will be attending there in the fall of this year. She looks forward to completing college and passing the bar to become a full-fledged attorney.