Marion (“Mickey”) Donovan-Kaloust began her career working with children as a public high school teacher in Los Angeles. She transitioned to law school out of a desire to advocate for children and youth. She began her legal career with a Skadden Fellowship, in which she created a groundbreaking program to improve legal serves for juvenile justice system-involved immigrant youth in California’s underserved Inland Region. Following her fellowship, she opened Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s Riverside satellite office. She has over twelve years of experience working with unaccompanied immigrant youth at other nonprofits, including Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, Kinds in Need of Defense, and Inland Counties Legal Services.

She currently oversees Immigrant Defenders Law Center Children’s Representation Project. She has taught Immigration Law at La Verne University College of Law and served on the board of the Inland Empire Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. She was co-counsel on the groundbreaking 2023 California Supreme Court case Guardianship of Saul H., which enshrined protections for immigrant youth seeking safety in California. Mickey is considered an expert in Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and the intersection on juvenile justice and immigration law in both the state of California and the nation. She was named “Fearless Children’s Lawyer” of the month by the American Bar Association in July 2020.

She graduated from UCLA School of Law in 2014 with a specialization in public interest law and policy. In 2006 Mickey earned her Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Goucher College in Maryland. She is eternally grateful that her ancestors were able to seek safety in the United States as they fled genocide and famine. She’s the mother of one child and strives to provide the quality of legal services she hopes her daughter would receive if she were ever in her clients’ position.