Habba and her two siblings were born in Summit, New Jersey. Their parents were Chaldean Catholics who emigrated from Iraq to the United States in the early s to escape persecution in their home country.
Habba, is a gastroenterologist. She attended Lehigh University , graduating in with a bachelor's degree in political science. Between and , Habba worked in the fashion industry in accessories production and marketing with executives at Marc Jacobs. According to her, though she enjoyed the fashion industry, she decided to attend law school for financial reasons. After finishing law school, Habba was a law clerk to Eugene J.
Codey Jr. In a lawsuit filed in December aimed at referring Habba to the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics, a Trump National Golf Club Bedminster employee alleged that in the second half of , Habba induced the employee into entering an illegal non-disclosure agreement when the employee intended to accuse a club manager of workplace sexual misconduct New Jersey banned non-disclosure agreements for workplace harassment.
Habba had never done legal work for Trump when, in September , he hired her as part of his legal team, replacing several well-established lawyers who had worked for Trump for many years but had withdrawn their services, including: Marc Kasowitz , Charles Harder , Joanna Hendon , Marc Saroff Mukasey, Jay Sekulow , and Lawrence S. Trump had called Zervos a "liar" in , after she accused him of kissing her and groping her, without her consent, when she was a contestant on Trump's reality TV show, The Apprentice.
In October , Habba filed a Trump countersuit against Zervos, claiming she was trying to stifle Trump's right to free speech. Shortly thereafter, in November , Zervos discontinued the lawsuit. Habba represented Trump in a legal case where he was being investigated for falsely representing the value of his assets on various Statements of Net Worth that banks required him to file annually to ensure that Trump had sufficient funds to repay their loans.
