About

Martha A. Astor

Martha A. Astor serves as Associate Counsel, Litigation for DFI and has over 20 years of experience in education. Her work in litigation spans state and federal courts across the country. Her legal career is devoted to public interest litigation. She has served on the boards of numerous civic organizations, including the Government Advocacy Committee for The Florida Bar. 

Martha also taught courses at Northern Arizona University and provided extensive educational consultation across the country. She is a FINRA neutral and a Nationally Certified Counselor.

She earned her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School. She clerked for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals while in law school. She holds a B.S. in Public Relations and an M.A. in Counseling from Northern Arizona University.

Martha is a member of the District of Columbia, Texas, Arizona, and Florida Bars and is admitted to practice in federal courts across the country, including the Ninth, District of Arizona, Middle District of Florida, and the Western District of Texas. 

Emily Cruikshank

Emily C. Cruikshank serves as Associate Counsel, Litigation for DFI as a part of the Koch Associate Program. Prior to joining DFI, Emily practiced law at a civil litigation firm in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in commercial and residential property disputes, premises liability, motor vehicle tort defense, medical malpractice, and construction litigation. Prior to that role, Emily served as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Charles County, Maryland where she represented the State of Maryland in criminal prosecutions.

Emily holds a B.A in Criminology and Criminal Justice from University of Maryland, College Park and earned her J.D from the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia bars and is admitted to practice in their respective federal courts. 

Donald Daugherty, Jr.

Donald A. Daugherty, Jr., serves Senior Counsel, Litigation for DFI and has over 30 years of experience in trial and appellate litigation, appearing in state and federal courts across the country. Before becoming a public interest litigator in 2019, he had been a partner at three of Wisconsin’s largest law firms and recognized as among the “Best Lawyers in America” and Wisconsin’s “Super Lawyers.”

While in private practice, he represented clients in disputes involving commercial/corporate, health care, information technology, intellectual property, trade regulation, and creditor’s rights issues.  Since joining the public interest sector, he has litigated matters involving education reform, First Amendment rights, administrative law, and campaign finance and election law. 

Don has served on the boards of numerous civic and charitable organizations, including as President of the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association. In 2021, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin appointed Don to the state’s Judicial Commission, where he serves as vice-chair.

He earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Roger J. Miner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Don is a member of the Wisconsin and the District of Columbia Bars and is admitted to practice in multiple federal courts, including the Second, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Federal Circuits and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Cari Isham

Cari is the Vice President of Development and Operations for DFI. Previously, she served as the Vice President of Development at 50CAN, Inc. where she built her department and served on the organization’s leadership team. Cari has dedicated the majority of her career to education reform, working with StudentsFirst, California Charter School Association Advocates, and the Tennessee Charter School Center.

Prior to Cari’s work in education reform, she had a political consulting business and worked with federal and local conservative candidates across the Southeast. Cari has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and International Relations from Saint Louis University.

Selena Lin

Selena serves as the Research Assistant at DFI. Her primary expertise is in East Asian politics, Asia Pacific’s security issues, Cross Strait crisis, and Chinese foreign policy, in particular, US-China relations. Previously, she participated in the Koch Internship where she created a K-12 STEM activity guide for her university’s makerspace. She was also selected to participate in the John Quincy Adams Society’s 2023 summer conferences.  

Selena is a senior studying International Affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology and plans to pursue a Masters in International Affairs next year. 

Clairece Marker

Clairece Marker is the Digital Marketing Associate for DFI. Previously, she was a Digital Communications Intern for The Heritage Foundation where she aided in creating and maintaining digital content for their social media platforms and website. She was also a contractor for The Resolute Group in Phoenix, AZ where she served as a graphic designer for right-of-center politicians and non-profits primarily involved with school choice issues in a variety of different states. In addition, Clairece is an alumna of the Forge Leadership Network – an organization that seeks to train young professionals in politics, business, and economics through intensive training sessions held in Columbus, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and internationally in Israel.

Clairece holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a minor in marketing and is a part-time student at Columbia Southern University, pursuing a master’s degree in business administration.

Paul Zimmerman

Paul joins DFI as Policy Counsel.  He will lead its Teacher Union Accountability Project and assist with DFI’s federal agency transparency and oversight efforts.  From 2019 to 2021, Paul was Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he coordinated agency responses to requests from oversight entities, consulted on legal privileges in the context of litigation and Freedom of Information Act requests, and prepared senior personnel for testimony before congressional committees.  Before he joined Commerce, Paul worked for over a decade in multiple roles at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.  In his first position, as Director of Publications, he served as editor of the Federalist Society’s law review, which features articles authored by legal experts on key developments in 15 practice areas, and he edited and published the organization’s newsletters and white papers.  In his subsequent role, as Deputy Director of International Affairs, Paul advised and assisted civil society organizations and experts in Europe, Canada, and Asia seeking to promote discussion of the rule of law, separation of powers, and individual freedom in their national contexts.  He also coordinated transatlantic exchanges between a network of European judges and their American counterparts and managed a website monitoring international organizations and their impacts on domestic laws and policies.

Paul holds a B.A. in Political Science from Duke University and earned his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  He is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia Bars.