“For me personally, one of the proudest moments is when I realized that I was able to practice as a Muslim woman, and still get people to respect my abilities and rely on me as an experienced attorney. ”

“I am an attorney at McManis Faulkner. I do mostly commercial litigation. I was 11 years old when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. One of the main reasons that made me decide this is because being a lawyer is a very powerful thing. Knowing what the laws are, or just being able to know how to work through the system is an important thing to have. When you have to go to a lawyer, you really trust that person to do the right thing. 

I have been very successful in my practice. So for example, I recently defended a company in a fraud claim. I was up against an international law firm and was able to get the entire case dismissed. Last year, I successfully defended a corporate executive in a trade secrets case, after a federal jury trial.  I recently started a newsletter to help educate start-ups on legal issues they face in their business that can sometimes cause them to fall into unnecessary litigation later on.     

I have a case in particular where I represented a Malaysian Muslim woman who was falsely arrested at San Francisco airport because she was supposedly on the No Fly List. It stands out because of the incredible difficulty of the case. We were going up against a government that had unlimited resources, had 26 lawyers on the case, and spent thousands of hours fighting the case. And against that, we, at McManis Faulkner, are a smaller firm. We had a total of about six lawyers who worked on the case. And in spite of that, we were tremendously successful.

It was the first No Fly List case that was allowed to proceed at the trial court level. Before that, all the No Fly List cases were being dismissed. And it really paved the way for others to challenge the placement of their names not just on the No Fly List, but on any government watchlist. It was also the first of its kind to go to trial against the US government and to prevail. So not only did we get the lower court overturned three times on appeal, which is really an incredible thing, but we also won at trial, which is very difficult to do against the US government. 

But I think for me personally, one of the proudest moments is when I realized that I was able to practice as a Muslim woman, and still get people to respect my abilities and rely on me as an experienced attorney. So that's a huge accomplishment for me because it is a testament to the ability to overcome people's serious misconceptions about Muslim women.

I enjoy having the ability to work to influence or change the law. I also enjoy being someone that a client can come to and rely on. You use your knowledge of the law and your experience to work with a client and help them resolve a very serious issue. It feels very good to do that for people.”