Karen is a Principal Attorney at Zulkie Partners, a boutique immigration law firm in Chicago, where she has practiced corporate immigration law since 2006. She serves clients across diverse industries—including manufacturing, financial services, pharmaceuticals, and e-commerce—focusing on employment-based visa matters, multinational executive transfers, and immigration compliance.

Before becoming an immigration attorney, Karen spent three years as a campus minister at the University of Chicago, an experience that shaped her relationship-driven approach to legal practice. She began her immigration law career at Notre Dame Law School's Immigration Law Clinic, where she served individuals who had escaped the Rwandan genocide. That experience—helping people build new lives in the United States—became the foundation of her practice philosophy: seeing cases as relationships, not file numbers.

Since 2018, Karen has been recognized by her peers as a "Leading Lawyer," a distinction bestowed upon less than 5% of all lawyers licensed in each state. She is known for her proactive, thorough approach and her ability to remain calm under pressure, whether managing high-volume H-1B cap filings or guiding companies through complex compliance audits. One of her most memorable moments came when a USCIS officer approved a client's green card petition on the spot during an in-person interview—they celebrated together over lunch at the client's favorite restaurant.

Karen earned her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School and is admitted to practice in Illinois. Outside of work, she is an avid marathoner who has completed races in Chicago, New York, and Berlin, and runs with Team World Vision to raise funds for clean water projects worldwide.