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trustingrelationships with patients so that they can feel comfortable sharing information about trafficking with you.It is normal to want to rescue someone who is a victim of human trafficking, but it is important to proceed with caution and respect the wishes of the patient.33 Unless calling the authorities is mandatory, do not do so without the patient’s permission. Do not frighten the patient by asking about his or her immigration status.34Your words may be the first message of hope or kindness the patient has heard in a long time. Communicate that they have rights, that they are not alone, and their situation is not their fault, and that they are entitled to help.35 Assess the safety of the patient by asking about whether they have a safe place to stay, and what would happen to them if they did not return to where they were expected to be that evening.36 If there is a hospital social worker, connect them with the patient. 37 You can also connect the patient directly to service providers that will help them. 38 Understand that many trafficking victims will wait to seek help until they feel that they safe.39 You can help the patient by providing them with information about where to seek help in the future (including returning to the clinic/hospital).Remember to communicate verbally to avoid the risk of the trafficker finding and destroying your written instructions.408. Grace, A.M., Lippert, S., Collins, K. et.al., (2014). “Educating health care professionals: In addition to helping identify victims of human trafficking, health care professionals can also provide much-needed physical, mental, and dental health care. Here is one example from the legal practice where a health care professional could have assisted a client:After being freed from the conditions of her trafficking, my client had great need for mental health services in the form of counseling, but we had trouble locating a Spanish speaking therapist who accepted Medicaid. Additionally, my client was suffering from an abscess tooth that required immediate attention from a dentist. Her needs are not unique: most victims of human trafficking suffer from malnutrition and therefore are subject to severe dental decay and pain. Through community connections we were able to find a dentist who agreed to remove our client’s tooth at no charge, while we translated. Clearly, it would be wonderful if other health care providers throughout the state could provide similar services, on a case by case basis, for the occasional survivor of human trafficking that ends up needing their assistance. Perhaps physicians and other health professionals could talk to their local and state professional associations about establishing programs to provide needed services on a pro bono basis to victims of human trafficking needing urgent attention for their medical issues.The growth of medical-legal partnerships, in which doctors, particularly in safety-net clinics and hospitals, work together with pro-bono attorneys to address both the medical and legal needs that are affecting the health of the patients/clients, has the potential to improve care for victims of human trafficking.Medical Legal Partnerships serve vulnerable populations in three ways:Lawyers join the healthcare teams by providing direct legal assistance to patients/clients who have unaddressed legal needs that are affecting their health.Lawyers and medical professionals can work together to shape institutional policy and provide better preventative care to patients/clients before their issues become medical or legal emergencies.Medical Legal Partnership teams can use their combined experience to advocate for laws that better protect the health of vulnerable populations.41Legal advocates play an important role is assisting victims of human trafficking. Lawyers can help train medical professionals to recognize victims of human trafficking,42 and they can help trafficking victims find legal remedies that will help them find security and rebuild their lives. Trafficking victims who have left their trafficker often face threats and intense pressure to return. 43 While the state will often prosecute traffickers, it can also be helpful in cases where the trafficker is a spouse, family member, or significant other for some victims to receive civil orders of protection against their abusers, which subject the trafficker to criminal liability for attempting to re-recruit or threaten the victim as they are trying to rebuild their lives.44When trafficking victims are also undocumented immigrants legal remedies exist to keep fear of being prosecuted or deported from preventing them from seeking help. The T-Visa and U-Visa were both created by the Trafficking Victims Protections Act of 200045 and can help victims of human trafficking establish a life in the United States.46 Some victims of human trafficking have also recently been able to obtain asylum, and an eventual pathway to lawful permanent residence and citizenship through the U and T visas.47However, all of these remedies require the victim to be able to testify about their experiences, an act which is often made incredibly difficult from the trauma they have received. It is important for lawyers to be able to recognize symptoms of psychological distress and trauma and to refer their clients to mental health practitioners when possible.48This is an area where Medical Legal Partnerships have the potential to be uniquely effective. Lawyers and healthcare professionals can work together to help meet the medical, psychological, and legal needs of trafficking victims as they seek to recover from their trauma and rebuild their lives. Health professionals can also provide lawyers with training that will help them to recognize and be sensitive to psychological trauma.In order to effectively help clients who have been victimized by human trafficking, lawyers must build rapport and trust. Sometimes victims have difficulty trusting attorneys and associate them with the government, which their traffickers have conditioned them to fear. 49 If the victim trusts their doctors and nurses, that trust may transfer more easily to an attorney who is known by their healthcare practitioners and works in tandem with them.Medical professionals and lawyers also need to work together to give the victim their best chance at obtaining one of these legal remedies. Medical evidence is often crucial to obtaining these visas. Lawyers can train clinicians to draft letters and affidavits about their patients, and to effectively document medical histories of victimization of violence.50In addition to helping individual victims and providing mutual training, healthcare professionals and legal advocates can also work together to advocate for change on a larger scale. In 2010 in Cleveland the local medical legal partnership approached the city council asking them to pass a resolution supporting the U-Visa program. Before this, the council members had never heard of U-Visas. After the resolution was passed, the council and mayor understood the importance of U-Visas. The medical legal partnership also educated the public about U-Visas, helping to get the word out about this form of assistance to undocumented victims of violent crime.51A Medical Legal Partnership was created in 2011 between Neighborhood Health Services (NHS), a non-profit clinic that assists low-income and uninsured members of the Tallahassee community, the Florida State University College of Law’s Public Interest Law Center (PILC) and FSU’s College of Medicine. Doctors, nurses, and therapists at NHS refer patients that they believe may have legal needs that are affecting their health to PILC, where law students under my supervision work to determine and address their legal needs. So far the most common legal need has been assistance with a Social Security Disability application or appeal, but in almost all cases there has been one unexpected but very real benefit to the patients/clients. Healthcare professionals have too many patients to spend thesometimes several hours talking with and listening to patients/clients that law students have available. The student attorneys also often gather medical records from many sources for the patients/clients, giving them broader pictures of the issues they are facing. These extended conversations and research have helped the students identify and address issues facing the clients that otherwise might not have come to light for their treating physicians.The Medical Legal Partnership between NHS and PILC is still fairly new and we have not yet tackled any human trafficking cases, but we