Our Firm
Career Highlights
Professional Biography
Personal Biography

Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C., a minority-owned and operated law firm, is one of the few law firms in Iowa working in the area of immigration law. Similarly, Attorney Ferzana Hashmi is one of a handful of lawyers in Central Iowa who is personally able to provide legal advice in languages other than English. As a result, the vast majority of Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C. clients are immigrants. Given the size of the state and the number of immigrants in Iowa, the services of the Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C. are in high demand.

Because United States immigration laws are federal in nature (no state or local law is involved), Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C. is able to provide immigration legal services to clients located anywhere in and outside of the United States. As a result of Iowa's unique immigrant populations, we have been asked to assist foreign nationals with admission to the United States in Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa.

We provide consultations to both corporations and individuals on immigration law issues. In addition to immigration law, the Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C. is able to provide general practice legal services, including but not limited family law and business law. See Practice Areas for a detailed description of the specific services offered.

At the Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C., we are committed to providing quality and efficient service to our clients, no matter the size of the client. Our personal involvement and legal expertise has allowed us to build successful working relationships with our diverse clientele. Due to the changing nature of law, Attorney Hashmi personally monitors developments in immigration law and keeps abreast of important legal changes on an ongoing basis to better serve Hashmi Law Firm, P.L.C. clients.

Ferzana Hashmi is an attorney licensed to practice law by the Supreme Court of the state of Iowa. Attorney Hashmi is also admitted to federal practice in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa in the 8th Circuit. She is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Attorney Hashmi was elected to a chapter officer position and currently serves as the Iowa-Nebraska Chapter Secretary. Attorney Hashmi is an active member in good standing of the Iowa Bar Association and the Polk County Bar Association.

Attorney Hashmi attended the prestigious University of Virginia School of Law where she completed a Juris Doctor in 2004. While attending law school, Attorney Hashmi simultaneously completed a Masters in Business Administration at the Darden Graduate School of Business, a leading business school in the United States.

During Attorney Hashmi’s graduate studies in law school and business school, she completed a number of summer positions and clerkships at a variety of organizations to hone her legal research and writing skills while working with a variety of clients and areas of law. She worked in the Legal Department of General Electric Financial Assurances in Lynchburg, VA in 2000, spending a lot of her time researching internet law issues across fifty states and biometrics as part of a web-based product launch. She also clerked in the Enforcement Division of the New York Stock Exchange in New York city in 2001 where attorney Hashmi worked on a number of regulations dealing with the sale of securities. Attorney Hashmi summered at the boutique banking law firm of Comey & Rigby in Washington D.C. during the summer of 2002 on a large-scale international banking matter that necessitated the use of English and French and familiarity with the legal systems in the United States and France. Finally, she was an MBA consultant advising two start-up bio-tech businesses, Home Guardian and Hypogen, which had both competed in Darden’s challenging Business Plan/Concept Competition earning their seats in the Darden Progressive Incubator in Charlottesville, VA in 2003.

In 1997, Attorney Hashmi graduated from the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences as an undergraduate, majoring in Foreign Affairs and minoring in South Asian Studies. She also completed undergraduate coursework in French, Hindi and Urdu.

Education

Juris Doctor, University of Virginia School of Law
Masters in Business Administration, Darden Graduate School of Business
Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia
High School Diploma, Bronx High School of Science

Overseas Studies

Mexico City, Mexico:
El Instituto Panamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa (IPADE)

Paris, France:
Institute of Political Studies
Institute of European Studies
L'Institut Catholique de Paris-La Faculté de Sciences Sociales et Economiques

Languages

English
French
Hindi
Spanish
Urdu

Professional Affiliations

Iowa State Bar Association
Polk County Bar Association
American Immigration Lawyers Association, Iowa-Nebraska Chapter, Secretary 2007-2008

Activities

Community:
LUNA (Latinas Unidas por un Nuevo Amanecer) Board Member
Iowa AIR (Allies for Immigration Reform)

Art:
Lampworking/Glass Bead Making Instructor, Iowa State University Workspace Studio
Lampworking/Glass Bead Making Instructor, Des Moines Art Center

Education:
Lecturer, Iowa State University, Gerdin College of Business, Management Department, Course: Management of Diversity (includes classes on civil rights, employment discrimination and immigration)
Lecturer, Iowa State University, Gerdin College of Business, Accounting Department, Course: Business Law

Ferzana Hashmi was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to Pakistani and Tanzanian parents. As a child, she learned to speak English and French at school and Urdu at home. Because the rules, culture and language changed depending on where young Attorney Hashmi found herself, she became a master at adapting to changes in cultures, rules, languages and circumstances. For this reason, clients find it easy to talk to Attorney Hashmi, irrespective of background, country of origin or language. Ferzana Hashmi has developed over time a special cultural competency as the child of immigrants in a foreign, yet not foreign land. She credits growing up with one foot in the West and one foot in the East for these cultural competency skills, essential her law practice.

During elementary school, Ferzana Hashmi moved to the neighborhood of Jamaica in Queens, New York with her family and added Spanish to her growing list of languages. Queens is the most diverse county in the United States with the most amount of representation in ethnic groups, countries or languages, a veritable melting pot right across the way from Ellis Island and the Statute of Liberty. The immigrant experience is all the Ferzana Hashmi has known. As a youngster, she was able to experience the plight and suffering of immigrants, who were not equipped with the English language or knowledge of American laws. The hardships of her parents in New York city motivated Attorney Hashmi to fight for the rights of immigrants from a young age and to excel in English and at school.

At the age of 8, Ferzana Hashmi took her first international flight alone and unchaperoned and there began an unquenchable thirst for international travel and different cultures and languages. Since then, Attorney Hashmi has traveled to more than 30 countries alone, all the while learning to fit in and communicate outside of her comfort zone. She has lived, worked or studied in China, France, Mexico, England, Belgium, Canada and the United States. Today, Attorney Hashmi finds herself in the sleepy college town of Ames, Iowa, the fiancée of an Iowa State University professor. It is through her practice of immigration law and her work with Iowa's immigrants that Ferzana Hashmi continues to travel vicariously in hearing the stories of her clients, whether they are Liberian, Mexican, Indian, British, Honduran or German in origin, but current Iowa residents.

Attorney Hashmi is no stranger to competition and excellence. At the age of 13, Attorney Hashmi passed an entrance exam and was admitted to the prestigious Bronx High School of Science. It was at here that Attorney Hashmi joined the Bronx High School of Science Speech and Debate team where she soon learned that the arguments she frequently had with her parents at the dinner table were actually an art form called debate. Attorney Hashmi excelled in Lincoln Douglas debate, frequently competing every weekend at local and regional tournaments along with her 110+ teammates under the mentorship and guidance of Richard B. Sodikow. It was debating in high school that completed the puzzle and young Attorney Hashmi soon found her calling. She decided then and there that she must become an attorney and use the power of her voice and her mind to fight for what she believes.

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