Alina Habbamnl63, who President-elect Donald J. Trump said would serve as a counselor to the president in the White House during his second term, has advised him on legal matters since he left office in 2021.

She served on Mr. Trump’s team, as a lawyer and spokeswoman during his civil fraud trial in New York, where a judge found that Mr. Trump had fraudulently inflated his wealth.

“The only thing they want are facts that are bad for Trump,” she said on a lunch break one day during the trial, scolding the judge overseeing it in a moment that reflected her role on Mr. Trump’s team as a defender inside and outside of court. “That’s why he’s silencing him.”

Ms. Habba, who people close to Mr. Trump have said was introduced to him at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., will occupy a role filled by Kellyanne Conway in the first Trump administration. A law firm she founded, Habba Madaio & Associates, is a few miles away from the club.

During Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, Ms. Habba was a fixture on television, in conservative news media and at campaign gatherings, speaking at the Republican National Convention and an incendiary Madison Square Garden rally before the election.

In a statement announcing her role on Sunday, Mr. Trump said that Ms. Habba, a first-generation American whose parents fled Iraq to escape religious persecution, had become a “role model for women in law and politics.”

“She has been unwavering in her loyalty, and unmatched in her resolve — standing with me through numerous ‘trials,’ battles, and countless days in court,” Mr. Trump said. “Few understand the weaponization of the ‘injustice’ system better than Alina.”

In 2022, Ms. Habba was among the lawyers for Mr. Trump whom a federal judge in Florida imposed sanctions on for bringing a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and other perceived enemies. The judge, Donald M. Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida, accused the lawyers of abusing the legal system.

“The courts are not intended for performative litigation for purposes of fund-raising and political statements,” he wrote.

Ms. Habba also represented Mr. Trump in a lawsuit against The New York Times in which he accused the newspaper and three of its reporters of a plot with his estranged niecemnl63, Mary L. Trump, to improperly obtain his tax records for a series of stories published in 2018. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed.

• The
• to
• Who
• Is
• mnl63