Margaret Lee

Margaret Lee is the senior staff attorney at the Human Trafficking Legal Center. She leads the Human Trafficking Legal Center’s strategic litigation program.

Prior to joining the Human Trafficking Legal Center, Lee was a federal prosecutor for nine years. Most recently, she served as the deputy chief of civil rights for the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where she was responsible for investigations and prosecutions involving human trafficking, hate crimes and color of law violations. During her time as a federal prosecutor, Lee led investigations into numerous transnational organizations engaged in trafficking vulnerable individuals both in the United States and abroad. Through her work, Lee worked extensively with survivors of human trafficking. She has received the Federal Bureau of Investigation Director’s Award for Excellence in International Operations (2016), the Homeland Security Investigations New York Prosecutor of the Year Award (2019) and the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service (2019). 

Lee clerked for the Honorable Leonard B. Sand, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Honorable Margo K. Brodie, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and previously worked as a litigation associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell. She graduated with honors from Williams College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. She also serves as a faculty member for Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop and previously served as an adjunct professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, where she taught a seminar and clinic on federal prosecution.