MEGAN K. MATTIMOE, JD, TRCC
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND MANAGING ATTORNEY

Phone (toll-free): (855) 855-1945, Ext. 700
Email: mm@advocatingopportunity.com

Megan K. Mattimoe founded Advocating Opportunity, a program in Toledo, Ohio, dedicated to advising and protecting trafficked and exploited persons. Founded in 2011, AO was the first organization in Ohio to provide holistic, comprehensive, trauma-responsive legal services to all trafficked and exploited persons. As Executive Director and Staff Attorney at AO, Ms. Mattimoe offers direct legal services and advocacy for both minors and adults, females and males, and domestic and international trafficking victims; provides technical consultation on trafficking cases; and advocates for policy and legislative initiatives regarding trafficking at the local, state, and federal levels. Ms. Mattimoe serves on the Legal and Legislative Subcommittee of the Ohio Human Trafficking Commission and the Policy Committee of the Freedom Network. She has worked closely with law enforcement and government officials to identify the best practices for prosecuting human traffickers and protecting individuals. This includes her efforts to assist in writing, and passing, Ohio’s Safe Harbor Law, one of the most sweeping revisions of such laws in the United States, and its subsequent revisions, SB 4 expanding expungement for survivors, and additional legislation related to human trafficking.

Ms. Mattimoe has assisted with, and participated in, dozens of interviews and cases involving trafficked and exploited minors and adults conducted by Special Agents and Victim Specialists with the FBI and local law enforcement and has worked with the Innocence Lost Task Force in Northwest Ohio for over ten years. Ms. Mattimoe also trains attorneys, guardians ad litem, courts, service providers, and law enforcement throughout Ohio to work with trafficked and exploited persons. Currently, Ms. Mattimoe is one of only three guardians ad litem appointed through the Juvenile Court to work with the FBI representing trafficked and exploited minors.

She is the recipient of the 2019 Access to Justice Award for Public Interest Law, a recipient of a 2015 Jefferson Award, was recognized as a 2018 Honorary Awardee for the Marlene Young Leadership Award given by the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and is a 2015 Fellow with the Ohio State Bar Foundation. In 2014 the Ohio State Bar Foundation awarded AO to be its Outstanding Organization of the Year 2014.

Ms. Mattimoe was appointed as a Magistrate Judge in the Toledo Municipal Court from 2015-2017 and most recently accepted a position as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Toledo, College of Law in Public International Law Fall 2021. She has over 13 years of experience as an attorney in litigation at the trial and appellate levels and over 12 years of experience working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Innocence Lost Task Force in Northwest Ohio. She also has over twenty-five years of experience in public service work, including four years as an outreach worker with the YWCA Rape Crisis Center. Ms. Mattimoe served as a member of the Emerging Leaders Council with Legal Aid of Western Ohio and Advocates for Basic Legal Equality until 2015. She also served as a board member for the Toledo Women’s Bar Association from 2010-2012. Ms. Mattimoe graduated cum laude from the University of Toledo, College of Law, in 2007 with Juris Doctor in International Law.

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