OPIA staff members advise about 800 students annually, counseling students on seeking and finding public interest jobs both after graduation and during the summer. The Office, which was established by Dean Robert Clark in 1990, publishes dozens of nationally distributed public service guides, and has built a mentoring structure that numbers in the thousands.

Shabecoff served as co-director of OPIA from 1994 to 1998. Along with individually advising numerous students and alumni/ae on public interest legal careers, she was responsible for the Wasserstein Fellows Program, which brings public service attorneys to the Law School to advise students. Shabecoff also designed and ran OPIA's extensive programming schedule. She supervised the writing and production of a number of publications, including the Public Interest Job Search Guide and OPIA's monthly newsletters. She also managed the Public Interest Resource Center, an extensive library of public service information.

Shabecoff's affiliation with OPIA began as a Wasserstein Fellow-in-Residence in 1993. Prior to that, she worked with South Middlesex Legal Services from 1992 to 1994, representing low- income tenants in eviction cases and working on other housing issues. From 1986 to 1992, Shabecoff worked at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, where she litigated cases in federal and state courts and worked on affordable housing policy.

Shabecoff received her B.A. cum laude in sociology and politics from Brandeis University in 1982. She received her J.D. in 1986 from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar, a vice president of the Public Interest Law Foundation, and staff member of the Review of Law and Social Change. Shabecoff is currently participating in the Lead Boston program, a leadership training program sponsored by the National Conference for Communities and Justice. She is also a member of the board of directors of Project Parents Inc.