Freedom for All: An Attorney's Guide to Fighting Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is the reprehensible practice of physically or psychologically compelling an individual to work or provide commercial sexual services. An estimated 21-30 million people are currently enslaved worldwide, with fewer than one percent of these individuals ever identified. Attorneys have the much-needed skills, clientele, and positions to help shrink this alarming gap, by integrating identification, services and prevention strategies into their respective practices.

Whether criminal, corporate, employment, immigration, international or public interest, now is the moment to develop areas of the law, employ creative arguments and thinking, and implement new policies and programs. Efforts at all levels are sorely needed to increase identification, services and prevention - to make a true difference in the lives of trafficked persons. If you have ever asked yourself “What can I do?” Freedom for All gives you the answer.

Kelly Hyland was one of the first attorneys representing trafficked persons in the United States. Consequently, her longevity in the field and her depth and breadth of experience are unique. She has worked on the issue from multiple angles - providing direct legal services to survivors, collaborating with criminal investigators and prosecutors, drafting foreign and domestic legislation, examining rule of law initiatives, publishing policy reports, promoting victim-based immigration benefits, crafting and coordinating federal government policy initiatives, and training Fortune 500 supply chain management and suppliers.

She currently serves as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security providing legal advice to the Center for Countering Human Trafficking.

Kelly is a graduate of the Washington College of Law at American University and Allegheny College. She is a member of the State Bar of California. Most importantly, she has two sons and a 21 year old cat named Cali(fornia).