MARGARET O’DONNELL
Margaret founded Global Law Advocates in 2009 in order to live out her principles of compassionate service and legal excellence. She focused her law practice exclusively in immigration starting in 1985, and practiced in several law firms and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project before establishing her own in 2007. Margaret retired from the practice of law in 2019.
She is the author of the 2016 play Undocumented, which made its debut at the Burien Actors Theater in August 2016, followed by performances at St. Mark’s Cathedral and at The Conservatory in Seattle. She wrote The Detention Lottery in 2018 and Detained in 2019, two immersive theatre works set in an immigration detention court, and in a detention center. The Detention Lottery has been performed many times in the Puget Sound region since 2018; the script and production materials are freely available on this website for any non-commercial purpose. She speaks throughout western Washington to community and church groups on immigration law topics. She is a long-time volunteer for at citizenship and general immigration legal clinics in Washington State.
Margaret graduated from Purdue University in Indiana with a bachelor’s degree, and from Chicago-Kent College of Law with a Juris Doctor degree. She was admitted to the Illinois bar, and was a licensed attorney from 1985 until her retirement in 2019. She spent the years from 2000-2006 living and working in Latin America in US-funded programs to help improve administration of justice. She is fluent in Spanish.