Donya Khadem is an associate at Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, resident in the DC office.
Donya joined Kaplan Hecker after completing clerkships with the Hon. R. Guy Cole Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Hon. Matthew Leitman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. She has prior experience as a law clerk at Loevy & Loevy, where her practice included voting rights, First Amendment complaints, and prisoners’ rights-related cases. Donya also previously worked for the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as the Special Assistant to the General Counsel. In her time with DHS, she organized and managed the “Cybersecurity Conference for Lawyers” which was aimed at increasing the cybersecurity literacy of over 200 attorneys.
Donya received her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an Articles Editor of the Michigan Law Review, the Academic Chair of the Muslim Law Students Association, a participant in the Workers’ Rights Clinic and Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic, and an extern at the ACLU of Michigan. She also received many honors and awards for her work, including the Jenny Runkles Memorial Award in recognition of her commitment to public interest and diversity, the National Association of Women Lawyers Award, the Craig Spangenberg Oral Advocacy Award, the Excellence in Pro Bono Service Award, the Islamic Scholarship Fund Award and Michigan Muslim Bar Association Award. Donya received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and received the Louise Troxell Award and Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship Award.