Obituaries
Plane crash victims include 2 Wilkinson Stekloff associates, civil rights attorney set to join law faculty
A view of the scene after a regional plane collided in midair with a military helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., in late January. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Victims of the Washington, D.C., plane crash Jan. 29 include two Wilkinson Stekloff associates and a civil rights lawyer planning to join the faculty of the Howard University School of Law this fall.
The associates were Sarah Lee Best and Elizabeth Keys, according to the Wilkinson Stekloff website. They were both 33 years old; Keys died on her birthday. The civil rights attorney was 30-year-old Kiah Duggins, according to her employer, the Civil Rights Corps, and an obituary by her alma mater, Harvard Law School.
Among publications with coverage are Law360, Original Jurisdiction, Law.com (here and here), People and the Wall Street Journal.
While at Harvard Law School, Duggins helped protect families from COVID-19 pandemic evictions as president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. According to John Goldberg, the dean of Harvard Law School, Duggins was known for optimism, kindness and empathy.
“As a student and lawyer, Kiah was known for her boundless enthusiasm for advancing justice for the most vulnerable, and for building community,” Goldberg wrote.
Before joining the Civil Rights Corp, Duggins worked with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the law firm Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin. At the Civil Rights Corps, Duggins challenged unconstitutional policing and money bail practices.
She was also a former Miss Kansas contestant and a graduate of Wichita State University. During her undergrad years, she was a White House intern working for former first lady Michelle Obama, according to Law.com.
Best and Keys were returning to Washington, D.C., from a deposition when their American Airlines plane crashed with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, according to Original Jurisdiction.
Keys, a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, clerked for U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia before joining Wilkinson Stekloff in December 2021. During law school, she was the managing editor of the Georgetown Food and Drug Law Journal.
While an undergraduate at Tufts University, Keys was part of the sailing team, her partner, David Seidman, told Law.com.
David A. Super, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, told Law360 that Keys was “an extraordinary law student and an even better person.” Keys “was everything a great lawyer should be: meticulous but creative, focused but flexible, professional but kind,” Super said.
Best worked for Teach for America before attending the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She graduated in 2021. She clerked for U.S. District Judge John Cronan of the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge Eugene E. Siler Jr. of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati.
Best began work at Wilkinson Stekloff in November.
Cronan told Law360 that Best would spend hours mentoring law student interns to help them with research and writing.
“She was so caring and thoughtful and generous and had a wonderful sense of humor,” Cronan said.
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