Afsana Chowdhury founded The Law Office of Afsana Chowdhury, located in Fairfax, VA. She has handled all types of family law cases over her 11-year career, including divorce, child support, child custody, separation agreements, spousal support, and other family legal disputes. Her practice includes a special focus on the issues that arise in military and federal employee divorces. Ms. Chowdhury has experience representing spouses on both sides of these special divorce cases. Ms. Chowdhury is a native of Northern Virginia. She attended Virginia Tech University, where she earned her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, in political science. After graduation, she attended the University of Richmond School of Law. She was a member of the University of Richmond Law Review editorial board and the Moot Court Board. As a member of the Virginia State Bar, Ms. Chowdhury is admitted to appear in all Virginia state courts. She is also admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Ms. Chowdhury strives to deliver efficient, effective, and professional legal services to her clients. Unlike many family law firms, she offers flat fee billing that provides peace of mind about legal fees and creates an open line of communication with her clients by eliminating surprise bills. Her clients have responded to her client-centered approach to practicing law. She has received Avvo’s Clients’ Choice Award four times. She has a perfect five-star review rating on Facebook and over 50 five-star reviews on Google. She has also earned a perfect 10.0 Superb rating from Avvo.

Malik Drake is a practicing lawyer in the state of Virginia. Attorney Drake received his J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2001.

los Wall is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the George Mason University School of Law. Carlos has extensive experience in Virginia courts including representation of clients before the Virginia Supreme Court. During his 17 years of trial experience has represented more than 3000 individuals charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses. In addition to representing clients from throughout Northern Virginia, Carlos is one of the few attorneys in the area who has been chosen to represent police officers by the Police Benevolent Association. In that capacity, Carlos has represented numerous police officers in various criminal investigations as well as active criminal cases throughout Northern Virginia. Carlos’s effective representation of people in the community, as well as local police officers, has given him the respect of the local prosecutor’s offices and the local bench. Carlos looks forward to using that experience to help you with your case. Prior to becoming a partner at The Gordon Law Firm P.C., Carlos was an associate with Devine, Connell, and Sheldon LLC and served the community as an Assistant Public Defender in Fairfax County. In his previous employment, Mr. Wall was part of a team that defended several high-profile individuals, including Paul Powell, Larry Gooch, and John Allen Muhammad. Carlos is also experienced in immigration law and post-conviction remedies, including appeals, habeas corpus, pardons, restoration of rights petitions, and other extraordinary writs. Carlos also handles the firm’s civil caseload, which includes Personal Injury cases, Medical Malpractice cases, Domestic matters, and Expungements. Carlos was born in El Salvador and he has lived in various countries including Peru, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Ivory Coast. Carlos is fluent in Spanish.

Steve Halfhill concentrates in business, security, commodity and regulatory law, as well as domestic relations, traffic/criminal matters and general litigation. After receiving his J.D. Degree from West Virginia University in 1974, Mr. Halfhill entered the United States Army where he served as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Upon completion of his military service, Mr. Halfhill became an Assistant Director in the Commodity Future Trading Commission’s Division of Enforcement and later was Special Counsel to the Director of the Commodity Future Trading Commission’s Division of Trading & Markets. He has been in private practice since 1981, and is a member of the Bars of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and West Virginia. In addition, he is experienced in major federal litigation nationally, and is an experienced appellate practice as well as domestic relations, criminal, traffic, business and homeowners’/condominium association law.

Ms. Berry is the managing partner and has a wide range of experience in the representation of federal, public, and private sector employees as well as small business organizations. Her practice focuses on employment, retirement, business, and contract law. Ms. Berry specializes in federal employee retirement issues before the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and other federal agencies. In particular, Ms. Berry has represented federal employees in matters involving federal employee retirement issues under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), CSRS Offset, and the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). Many of her retirement matters have involved federal agency retirement errors in connection with the Federal Erroneous Retirement Coverage Correction Act (FERCCA), litigation with OPM and numerous other federal agencies over survivor annuitants’ benefits due to OPM errors and erroneous advice, issues involving former spousal benefits under Court Orders Acceptable for Processing (COAP) or Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDRO), federal law enforcement officer (LEO) and firefighter (FF) eligibility for special federal retirement benefits, and other federal employment retirement-related issues. Ms. Berry further specializes in the drafting, reviewing, and negotiating of severance, confidentiality/non-disclosure, non-compete, non-solicitation, and various other employment agreements. She also advises on business start-up and creation issues, contract drafting and review, and certain wage and hour issues. This representation includes executives and employees in various professions as well as solo practitioners, small businesses, and large organizations. Ms. Berry has litigated numerous Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) matters on behalf of federal and private sector employees against various federal agencies and private employers involving all types of discrimination and retaliation claims. In addition, Ms. Berry has handled grievance matters before county and federal agencies. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Berry served as Interim General Counsel and a corporate officer of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the largest nonprofit conservation organization in the United States. Ms. Berry has also served as a speaker at Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminars and other events, and provided legal training to staff on regulation compliance matters as well as business owners, independent contractors and solo practitioners in contract and business compliance matters. While Ms. Berry was a member of the Association of Corporate Counsel, she presented legal seminars as a faculty member on various legal issues of relevance to in-house counsel of business organizations.

Mr. Berry is the founding partner and represents federal employees, government contractors, employers, state employees, federal intelligence agency employees, law enforcement officers, firefighters, private sector employees, in various employment, labor and national security law matters. Mr. Berry’s primary practice areas include security clearance defense, disciplinary action defense, administrative investigation representation, and representation in equal employment opportunity (EEO) claims. For federal employees and government contractors, Mr. Berry represents them nationwide in security clearance appeals and federal disciplinary actions. Mr. Berry frequently defends federal employees in proposed removals, proposed suspensions, and performance matters before their respective agencies; represents federal employees in appeals before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB); represents individuals in Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint matters before respective federal agencies and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); and represents federal employees and government contractors in security clearance matters before the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) and the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA). In addition, Mr. Berry represents security clearance holders before all federal agencies (DoS, DoD, DoE) and those federal agencies within the Intelligence Community (NRO, NGA, CIA, DIA, NSA). Mr. Berry has represented hundreds of individuals in administrative investigations conducted by agency investigators, inspectors general (IG), internal affairs unit investigators and before the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) of various federal agencies. Mr. Berry also represents private sector, state, county, and municipal employees in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia in various types of investigations, county and state grievance procedures, disciplinary actions, whistleblower issues, and equal employment opportunity (EEO) matters. Mr. Berry previously served as the General Counsel to the United States Park Police and United States Capitol Police Federal Labor Unions representing law enforcement officers in disciplinary, wage and security clearance matters. Mr. Berry has also served as counsel for local businesses involving issues related to wage and hour matters, Human Resources Policy development, and employment legal defense. He is a security clearance lawyer and member of the Security Clearance Lawyers Association. Mr. Berry has been interviewed on radio and television networks, like CNN, and written and commented on articles for news organizations such as the Washington Post and others. He has taught continuing education courses for lawyers in his practice areas. He has written several published legal articles on various topics regarding employment and labor law as well as security clearance law. Mr. Berry authors articles for ClearanceJobs. In addition, he previously served as the Editor-in-Chief of the District of Columbia Bar Labor and Employment Law Newsletter and served as a guest speaker for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminars on administrative, employment and labor law issues. Mr. Berry frequently provides legal guidance and training to Human Resources personnel of companies, nonprofit entities, and labor unions. In 2009, Mr. Berry was elected by his peers to the D.C. Bar Labor and Employment Law Section’s Steering Committee. The Committee works to advance the professional development and competence of its members by offering educational programs and publications in the substantive law fields of labor and employment law, as well as areas of practice and procedure. Since 2014, Mr. Berry has served as co-author of the firm’s legal articles on RestonNow, and ArlingtonNow. Since 2019, Mr. Berry has co-taught the District of Columbia Bar continuing legal education course on security clearance representation for other lawyers seeking to learn how to effectively represent clients in security clearance cases. Mr. Berry presented a class for the Virginia Continuing Legal Education program on the security clearance process in May of 2021 and a class regarding the MSPB and EEOC in November of 2022.