Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is being honored by Sanctuary for Families with a 2025 Above & Beyond Award for its work alongside Bloomberg Philanthropies on behalf of two labor trafficking survivors. The two survivors were lured from their home countries to the United States to provide domestic help. Though they were promised fair pay and good working conditions, they were exploited for years upon their arrival in America. Their passports were confiscated and they were paid much less than promised, made to work long hours, forced to endure verbal abuse and mistreatment, unable to access healthcare services, and were not given any days off, holidays, or sick days.

After years of enduring these conditions, the women escaped their traffickers when federal law enforcement intervened and referred the women to Sanctuary for Families. Sanctuary enlisted the assistance of Wilson Sonsini and Bloomberg’s Legal & Compliance Department’s Pro Bono team. The combined team represented the women in interviews with federal prosecutors, helped them access medical care, and secured T Nonimmigrant status for both the women and their family members who had remained in the home country. The team continues to work with the families in the U.S. and abroad to complete family reunification. In the end, the traffickers were prosecuted and sentenced, and as part of the criminal penalties, they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the survivors for back pay and medical expenses.

“These women not only got their lives back. They were able to get restitution and have justice served,” said Tonia Ouellette Klausner, Senior Pro Bono Counsel at Wilson Sonsini. She notes that the women have “confidence again, reclaimed power over their lives, and moved on towards a better future.”

The Wilson Sonsini pro bono team that represented the two survivors in the matter included Tonia Ouellette Klausner, Angelina He, and Manveer Martinson. The firm will be presented with the 2025 Above & Beyond Award at Sanctuary for Families’ awards ceremony in New York on October 21, 2025.

To learn more about the case, please see this blog post on Sanctuary for Families’ website.