Expert Witness · Speaker · Civil & Asylum Litigation
Expert opinions on human trafficking and forced labor: how exploitation is identified, what a reasonable institution should have recognized, and how the accounts of survivors should be assessed. Grounded in established national and international standards, across sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and domestic servitude.
Retained in civil and asylum matters involving sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and domestic servitude, including claims under the TVPA / TVPRA and related statutes, where the case turns on how exploitation is identified and whether a survivor’s account can be believed.
The recognized indicators of sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and domestic servitude, how they present in real settings, and how identification is assessed against established standards.
How indicators map onto the “knew or should have known” standard under the TVPA and related law, framed to the vantage point of the institution and its staff.
How credible accounts of exploitation are produced, disclosed, and too often wrongly disqualified, grounded in the mechanics of trauma, memory, and disclosure rather than assumption.
Identification and response assessed against national referral frameworks and international standards, including the UK and European systems that inform emerging US practice.
My work sits where two systems meet: how trafficking is identified, and how the accounts of trafficked people are tested for belief. For fifteen years — in tribunals, in national policy, and in scholarship — I have examined how institutions decide whose account of harm counts as credible, and what follows when they decline to recognize it.
That question arises across many kinds of case. In civil litigation it can decide whether an institution knew or should have known of exploitation. In an asylum or trafficking claim it can decide whether a survivor is believed. In each, the work is the same: to state, with rigor, which indicators were present, what a competent actor would have recognized, and why a survivor’s account holds together even where it is imperfect.
I provide assessments, written reports, declarations, and testimony that are clear, defensible on cross, and anchored in established standards rather than impression.
Straightforward, retainer-based, and structured to respect your timeline.
A brief, no-charge call to confirm fit, identify the opinion the matter needs, and clear conflicts before anything begins.
Engagement on a retainer against an hourly rate. I review the record and frame the opinion against the governing standards.
A written report or declaration, with deposition and trial testimony as the matter requires. Clear, cross-ready, defensible.
Retain or consult
Available for civil and asylum litigation involving trafficking, forced labor, and domestic servitude, including TVPA / TVPRA matters, and for case consultation and strategy. CV available on request.