Donya Khadem is an associate at Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP.
Donya was part of the legal team that successfully represented writer E. Jean Carroll in her sexual battery and defamation suit against Donald Trump, securing a $5 million jury verdict on her behalf after under three hours of deliberations.
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 at Loevy & Loevy, where her work included voting rights litigation, First Amendment litigation, and direct representation in prisoners’ rights-related cases. Donya also previously worked in the immigrants’ rights space for the American Immigration Lawyers Association and in President Obama’s Administration at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where she served as the Special Assistant to the General Counsel.
Donya received her J.D. with honors from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an Articles Editor of the Michigan Law Review and an extern at the ACLU of Michigan. While in law school, Donya served as a student attorney in multiple clinics, including the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic and the Workers’ Rights Clinic. As part of the Workers’ Rights Clinic, Donya presented an oral argument in front of the Michigan Court of Appeals and represented a client in a fraud hearing in front of an Administrative Law Judge. At Michigan Law, 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.
