The University of Michigan Law School’sHuman Trafficking Clinic (HTC) was established in 2009 by Clinical Law
Professor and Director Bridgette Carr. HTC has three faculty members (Carr,
Suellyn Scarnecchia, and Elizabeth Campbell). We are licensed attorneys who
supervise student attorneys. The law school pays us to teach our students
through our cases and the students receive law school credit for their work.
So, we are able to provide free legal
services. All of our clients are victims of human trafficking.
HTC usually has about 65 clients at any
given time. Some of our clients stay with us for several years because they
have a variety of legal needs. Many of our clients are referred to us by law
enforcement officers who discover victims when they are investigating
traffickers and from the Polaris Project’s National Human Trafficking Resource
Center hotline. We also receive referrals from prosecutors, foster care
agencies, and domestic violence/sexual assault service providers. We can take
client referrals from any source. Our
clients are foreign nationals from all over the world and U.S. citizens from
all over the nation. They are adults and minors, male and female, and they have
experienced labor and/or sex trafficking.
Our goal for each client is to provide him
or her with comprehensive legal services for the legal problems that stem from
the trafficking. Our clients often need a variety of legal services and we try
to provide them all or we find another attorney to help them. Here are some of
the ways we help clients:
- Advocate for a victim-centered approach to a criminal investigation and prosecution, to try to avoid re-victimizing clients in the criminal justice system and to seek restitution;
- Apply for temporary and permanent legal immigration status for clients and their families, including visas to bring relatives to the U.S. to reunify clients with their families;
- Apply to set aside criminal convictions that arose from the trafficking;Apply for services and benefits that are available to victims;
- Handle family, housing, consumer, and tax law issues;
- Locate an attorney to file a civil case against the trafficker(s); and
- Assist a client who wishes to “go public” with his/her story to navigate the media, legal system, and other public challenges.
This work requires us to understand the
trauma many of our clients have experienced and to represent them in a
trauma-informed manner. It also requires us to work in cooperation with many other professionals and volunteers in
the client’s life to maximize each client’s chance for a better life after
escaping and surviving human trafficking. Finally, we look out for our
students’ and our own reactions to our clients’ experiences for signs of
secondary trauma and teach best practices for healthy practitioners in this and
related fields.
Take
Action: If you or someone you know wishes to contact
HTC for legal advice and/or possible representation, please call 734-615-3600.
Suellyn
Scarnecchia is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law
School.
