Abigail is an attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor in the Office of the Solicitor enforcing federal labor laws including safety laws, reemployment rights for veterans, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and other labor laws. She was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States in 1985 as the first of six children. Abigail first volunteered with NWIRP as a law student and continued to volunteer as a pro bono attorney. She is the President of the Filipino Lawyers of Washington [FLOW] and volunteers as an attorney for the Asian Bar Association/King County Bar Association Legal Clinic. She earned both her B.A. in Political Science and her J.D. at the University of Washington.

Sahar Fathi is a legislative aide for Councilmember Mike O’Brien. She has served as a legal clerk for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, an extern for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, and a legal intern at the Attorney General’s Office of Washington. Sahar graduated from the University of Washington Law School and is a member of the New York bar. She also earned a Masters in International Studies from the University of Washington, and graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California with a dual Bachelor of Arts in French and International Relations. During her graduate studies, Sahar served as a panelist on the subject, “Child Labor on Family Farms: the Case of India” at the inaugural Graduate Research Symposium at the University of Washington. Additionally, Sahar attended the Sorbonne Université in Paris, France on exchange from 2003-2004 and received a diploma in International and European Law from the Université Jean-Moulin in Lyon, France in 2008. Sahar currently serves as President for the Middle Eastern Legal Association of Washington.

Monika Batra Kashyap is Associate Director of the Access to Justice Institute at Seattle University School of Law where she develops social justice programming for law students. Monika has worked as an immigration attorney at the law firm of Gibbs, Houston & Pauw in Seattle, where she represented detained and non-detained individuals in removal proceedings, and as an adjunct professor of the Immigration Clinic at Seattle University School of Law. Monika was also an immigration attorney/Equal Justice Works Fellow in New York City, where she represented immigrant youth in foster care. Before law school, she did extensive community organizing and anti-trafficking work within the South Asian immigrant domestic worker community in New York City. Monika received her J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and her B.A. in Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

Shawn is the Controller at BECU, a not-for-profit credit union cooperative. He is also on the board of directors for the Issaquah Soccer Club. Shawn is a CPA in the states of Washington and California. He graduated from California State University – Chico with a BS in Business Administration – Accounting.

Greg has volunteered as pro bono attorney for many individuals and families dealing with immigration problems, especially VAWA, asylum, and U visa cases. He took his first immigration case as a volunteer in Colorado in 1975. Greg has been a member of the Washington State Bar Association’s Pro Bono & Legal Aid Committee for several years and is also a board member and long-time volunteer college and financial aid counselor for College Access Now (CAN), which serves highly motivated Seattle-area high school students who are low-income and first generation in their family to attend college. During his career, Greg has been a biotech corporate executive, including CEO and board member for several public and private companies, a corporate/transactional partner in two large international law firms, and a Fulbright Scholar in law at the Academy of Foreign Trade in Moscow.

Marie Higuera is a Pacific Northwest native. She received her B.A. from Eastern Washington University and her law degree from the University of Washington. In the course of her studies, she also attended the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City and the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain. Marie has devoted her legal career to the practice of immigration law. In addition to practicing at a leading immigration law firm in Seattle, she worked as a staff attorney at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and remains an active pro bono volunteer. She speaks on immigration issues to the legal and immigrant communities of the Puget Sound area. Ms. Higuera and her staff also write an immigration law advice column for the weekly Spanish language newspaper, Raza del Noroeste.

Bio coming soon!

Vincent Lachina is a native of the South. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, was raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and spent his college and early adult years in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a graduate of Samford University in Birmingham with a degree in English and Religion, and the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, with the Masters degree in Religion and Education. For more than 45 years, he has held various positions, both nationally and locally in East Africa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas and Washington State. For ten years he served as the senior pastor for one of the oldest non-denominational evangelical churches in the Seattle area. While pastoring smaller congregations, he simultaneously held secular employment – 14 years with the Boeing Aerospace Company as an Industrial Engineer and later with a Seattle communications company as Director of Operations. In November of 2004, Lachina was hired for the position of Washington State Chaplain for the Planned Parenthood affiliates of Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Northwest Oregon, based in Seattle. In that role, he has created a faith community network of progressive congregations which now numbers over 500. Vincent has one son, Joshua who lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and Vincent’s grandson, Dakota.

Martine Pierre-Louis manages Interpreter Services and Community House Calls at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She holds a master in public health with a focus on international health. A Haitian Creole and French interpreter for over a decade, Martine is a founding member and past board member for both the Society of Medical Interpreters and the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care. For many years, she has been involved in community-based public health efforts with a focus on access to health care and for refugees and immigrants.

Michael R. Wrenn is a named partner in the law firm of Wolfe Wrenn & Zariski and specializes in complex litigation. From 1995 to 2005, Michael was a member of the Board of Trustees for the King County Bar Foundation and its President for 2000 and 2001. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Washington.

Carolyn J. Wright discovered NWIRP through her participation in United Way King County’s Project LEAD program in 2010. She holds a B.A. in Communications with an advertising specialty from Washington State University. Since then, she’s worked as an Account Coordinator for the advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding Seattle, as a grant writer with SOTA, the non-profit fundraising arm of Tacoma School of the Arts, and as a writer for ColorsNW magazine. From 2004-2006, she volunteered as a Peace Corps Municipal Development Volunteer in Guatemala. While there she had the desire to create literature and workshops to educate Guatemalans on their legal and civil rights as undocumented workers living in the U.S. For that reason, serving on the board of NWIRP, an organization dedicated to the just treatment of immigrants and refugees facing deportation, represents the satisfying fulfillment of her long held goal.