Photo by Tom Jenz
Erika Petty
Erika Petty
The renowned author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, once wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.’ The LOTUS Legal Clinic knows about untold stories because it provides comprehensive civil legal services to survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence.
Erika Petty is executive director and lead attorney. She grew up in Flint, Michigan. Her father was a Lutheran minister, and her mother was a nonprofit consultant and grant writer. When Flint’s economy turned bad, the family moved to Milwaukee. Her father became the minister of a church on National and 27th Street. The congregation was made up of English-speaking, Spanish and Hmong communities. Petty went to public schools and graduated from Rufus King High School. She then went onto Loyola University in Chicago, majoring in theater and sociology.
Upon graduation, she joined Americacorps, and worked two years at the Legal Aid Society of Chicago in the Children’s SSI project. She discovered that many impoverished families could not afford a lawyer. “I recognized that people living in poverty had so many unmet legal issues,” she told me, “and I decided to become a lawyer.” Petty moved back to Milwaukee and enrolled in Marquette Law School, her goal to be an attorney for low-income people in need of legal and civil services help.
I met Petty at her office in Walker’s Point. I found her thoughtful, engaging, and spirited. I could see how clients would feel kinship.
How did you get involved with the LOTUS Legal Clinic, and how did you become the lead attorney and executive director?
After law school, I took a job at Milwaukee’s Legal Action of Wisconsin in their Driver’s License Recovery Program. That started my career in civil legal aid. For nine years, I worked with clients who had suspended driver licenses and some with criminal records that prevented them from getting employment. Then, I practiced housing law for about four years. Along the way, I met a Mount Mary College professor and attorney, Rachel Monaco, who in 2013 founded the of LOTUS Legal Clinic. LOTUS was working with survivors of sexual violence and also other crimes, and Rachel was teaching Trauma-Informed Lawyering to other lawyers. In 2016, LOTUS became a 501c3 nonprofit. For a while, I worked for LOTUS part time, then I worked as senior staff attorney, and eventually I became the executive director.
I’ve read that the LOTUS Legal Clinic is Wisconsin’s only legal clinic that provides free legal services exclusively to victims of sexual violence and human trafficking (labor and sex) and that the clinic serves survivors of every sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, race, ability, socio-economic or resident status. That sounds daunting and seems like a lot of legal work. How is the clinic funded? Are the lawyers paid?
We are funded through federal and state government grants. Nonprofit foundations also provide funding. For example, we just received a Racine Dominican Missions grant to provide free legal immigration services to survivors of sexual abuse. These grants also provide salaries for our lawyers. Beside me, there are three other full time staff lawyers located in Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay. For areas of the law we do not handle, we refer clients to other legal aid societies.
According to your mission statement, and I quote, “The LOTUS Legal Clinic invests in survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence by blending comprehensive civil legal services, victims' rights representation, and therapeutic arts programming.” How do you go about all that?
The majority of our legal work deals with survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence. A lot of the survivors LOTUS works with are immigrants who have dealt with these kinds of crimes. We take on Title IX cases on behalf of students, and also file complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace. Some of the sexual harassment cases can involve immigrant workers in meatpacking factories or on farms. We can file Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claims. Often our clients are eligible for immigration protection. When we consult with clients, we explain their legal options. As an additional program, we offer survivors is our therapeutic arts program. We work with survivors who might not want to involve the legal system or report a crime, and we might refer them to our Untold Stories creative writing workshop. This workshop is sometimes done on a weekend where survivors can interact with others with similar stories. We also include an art therapist to encourage survivors to process their trauma through art. Finally, we have the Rise and Thrive Program for survivors who have gone through the writing workshop. We have the artist in residence program, and this year it is with a musician who writes songs based on the poems submitted by the survivors. This music can turn into a kind of celebration that they have overcome their traumas.
Here are some news headlines from recent years:
- Human trafficking is a crime that's growing in Milwaukee. According to Milwaukee Police, human trafficking is up 58% since 2021.
- The former owner of a Bay View restaurant was sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation, for sexually assaulting at least four of his restaurant employees over the years.
Can we talk about some of the cases you have worked on? No need to mention any names. I am just interested in examples of cases your represent in sexual violence and human trafficking.
For a sexual assault case, we worked with a survivor whose perpetrator was known to the family. This happens in a lot of our cases, that the perpetrator is known to the family.
Or he could be a family member.
Yes. In this case, the perpetrator sexually assaulted the client’s children.
Good Lord, that is so horrible.
Yeah, and so we got involved after the assault was reported to a child advocacy center. Our role was to support this immigrant family. We investigated if there was immigration protection that the mother could apply for based on what happened to her children. We were able to file a U-Visa on behalf of the victim’s mother. We also helped them draft an impact statement to use in court when the perpetrator was sentenced. It is very powerful for victims to stand up in court and tell the judge how the sexual abuse affected the children and family.
A U-Visa is a temporary visa issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to victims of certain crimes, providing temporary legal status and eligibility to work in the United States for up to four years.
Can you give an example of how you intercede legally in human trafficking?
Let me talk about a labor trafficking case. This is a case that involved immigrants who were victims of labor trafficking in agricultural work. These were farm workers who came here from Mexico on a temporary H-2A work visa, which allows the laborer to be working for only one employer. If the employer is abusive or breaks a law, the laborer cannot move on from that employer. The bad actor recruiter from this particular company took many of these farm workers to Wisconsin to work for a different grower. This meant that the company was out of compliance with the H-2A visa. In Wisconsin, the workers experienced long hours, lack of water breaks, and isolated housing. Also, their passports were taken away. After these laborers reported their situation to law enforcement, we got involved.
How did the LOTUS Legal Clinic help the farm workers?
We consulted each farm worker as to whether they wanted to stay in the country. We gave them their legal options, which included applying for temporary and long-term status and obtaining work authorization in this country. The criminal legal system went after the company and the other Wisconsin grower. We provided victim’s rights counseling, helping them understand the legal process.
It seems to me you were educating these immigrants on their rights.
Exactly. That is our number one goal. Many working immigrants do not know their rights.
Physical and sexual abuse can go unreported because the people involved might prefer privacy over the bureaucracy of the criminal justice system—or the victim reunites with her perpetrator after punishment or counseling. Asha Project’s Andrea Drew Norton told me that Black people often don’t trust the criminal justice system. She also said that many of her domestic and sexual abuse clients are afraid to get involved in the legal system. Can you comment on this?
Yes, I think there is a lot of mistrust of the criminal legal system because it is imperfect. We have worked with survivors who have reported sexual abuse, but nothing happens.
Abuse reported and nothing happening? That would definitely elevate the mistrust.
Exactly. I think the process is very complicated. Another thing. A lot of victims do not report sexual abuses because they don’t think they will be believed, especially if you have a criminal record or you are an immigrant, or you might think you will be deported. A perpetrator might tell his victim, “No one is gonna believe you.”
As a legal advocate, I do need to tell a client that there may not be an investigation after a report. However, I will go with the victim to police interviews to make sure their rights are protected.
According to the latest Milwaukee Police Department crime statistics, there have been 19 arrests for human trafficking, 252 arrests for rapes and 3,782 aggravated assault arrests. I would imagine a lot of those assaults are sexual in nature.
The figures do not surprise me. In fact, those numbers might be lower than the actual crimes because many go unreported. Think about the number of people in Milwaukee who have generational trauma. I also think that we don’t have enough resources in our city to help the victims who are poor. At LOTUS, we think about what we can do so that people are not re-victimized.
How does a victim get in touch with you to get representation?
On our website is a form that’s easy to fill out. There is also a phone number. We get referrals from nonprofits and from government agencies.
For more information, visit the LOTUS Legal Clinic website: lotuslegal.org
