Who We Are
Diane Dragan was practically born reading. It came easily and naturally to her. She excelled in public school and graduated Valedictorian of her high school and went on to the University of NE with a full scholarship. From there she continued on to law school at Pepperdine University in beautiful Malibu, California. It was during her time there she first stepped into a maximum security juvenile detention center and was faced with the stark reality that not all children were as fortunate as her and that a limited education drastically limited life choices. She dedicated her career to representing indigent criminal defendants in Las Vegas and in St. Louis beginning in 2006. Her passion was to ensure her clients were treated with dignity, respect, and fairness. During her career, she witnessed too many clients from not just broken homes but broken educational systems. They were passed along despite glaring deficiencies in core skills including literacy. As a result, they were easily funneled into the school to prison pipeline.
Diane Dragan
As her career progressed, her own family grew. Despite living in a well regarded school district, problems surfaced when one of her children was diagnosed with dyslexia. That diagnosis began a new journey where she learned the almost insurmountable hurdles that parents face when trying to get adequate services for their children with learning differences in the public schools. Diane Dragan has dedicated hundreds of hours to advocacy at the local and state level to improve the educational system. She volunteers as the St. Louis Regional Representative for Decoding Dyslexia, Missouri.
She regularly attends IEP meetings in multiple school districts advocating for children to get much needed services. She has also initiated formal Due Process proceeding and recovered settlements for private services. Having observed the need for a strong advocate and attorney first hand, Diane Dragan has decided to step away from government work so that she can dedicate herself to serving children and families advocating for the Free and Appropriate Public Education they are entitled to under the law. She will utilize her 25 years of litigation and advocacy experience to protect the most vulnerable in our society, our children. Diane Dragan will also continue to serve those who need her experience and expertise to navigate the federal criminal court system.
Licensed in Missouri and Nebraska
Katherine Douglass, joining the firm as “of counsel”, has a lifelong love of reading and writing and has dedicated her career to public service and nonprofit causes. She has practiced in the federal court system for 17 years as a criminal defense research attorney and federal judicial law clerk, combining her love of writing and her passion for advocating for the rights of the marginalized. Prior to her legal career, Katherine was a magazine editor, an assistant book editor at a small press, and a curriculum developer at a nonprofit serving refugees and immigrants. Katherine has served on the boards of Promise Community Homes and the National Lawyers Guild. Katherine believes that eloquent, polished written pleadings are as crucial to a successful result as vigorous representation in the courtroom. She excels at trial preparation, written advocacy, and complex legal research.
Licensed in Missouri