About Us

HTPP STAFF

Jessica Emerson, LMSW, Esq. (she/her) began the Human Trafficking Prevention Project at the University of Baltimore School of Law in August of 2015. Prior to founding the HTPP, Ms. Emerson was a staff attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Women’s Law Center of Maryland, where she began an innovative project focused on addressing the criminalization of sex trafficking survivors. Ms. Emerson received her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 2013. Prior to attending law school, she was a clinical social worker at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York City, where she provided intensive, individual mental health counseling and case management services to HIV-positive and sexually high-risk adolescents, as well as group counseling and HIV testing services to adolescent survivors of domestic sex trafficking and LGBTQIA+ youth at partnering community agencies. Ms. Emerson received her Master of Science in Social Work degree from Columbia University in 2001 with a focus on health, mental health, and disabilities. She trains statewide and nationally on criminal record relief for survivors of trafficking, marginalized populations, trauma and traumatic reactions, and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions for people in the commercial sex industry. She also co-authored a national report that rated all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the effectiveness of their trafficking-specific criminal record relief laws. Ms. Emerson is a barred attorney in Maryland, and a licensed social worker in New York State.

Kari Lee, Esq. (she/her) joined the Human Trafficking Prevention Project in May of 2023 as a Senior Staff Attorney. Before joining the HTPP, Kari served as an Assistant Public Defender in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County, where she served diverse groups of clients and, on their behalf, fought against the racial and socio-economic injustices endemic to our criminal legal system. She has worked with at-risk and vulnerable populations in both the non-profit and government sectors, advocating for victims and survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, youth and adults involved in the criminal legal system, and children in foster care. Kari received her JD from the University of Baltimore School of Law, and is a barred attorney in the state of Maryland.

Allison Stillinghagan, Esq. (she/her), joined the Human Trafficking Prevention Project after graduating magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in May of 2023.  Ms. Stillinghagan’s passion for addressing the harms of criminalization began during law school, when she became a student attorney in the Survivors of Violence clinical law program, which provides legal representation to clients who have experienced interpersonal and systemic violence and trauma in a broad array of legal matters. During her three semesters with the clinic, Ms. Stillinghagan worked with several incarcerated clients seeking parole and sentence modifications. She successfully litigated a sentence modification pursuant to the Juvenile Restoration Act for a client serving life in prison for a crime committed when he was a child. In 2022, Ms. Stillinghagan’s Comment, The Kids Aren’t Alright: The Road to Abandoning Deceptive Interrogation Techniques for Juvenile Suspects in Maryland, was published in Volume 81 of the Maryland Law Review. Prior to attending law school, she received her Bachelors of Science degree in Human Services from York College of Pennsylvania.