Lawless
A Lawyer’s Unrelenting Fight for Justice in a War Zone
Lavin Exclusive Speaker
Kimberley Motley is an international human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist. Also the first foreign litigator working in Afghanistan, she’s armed with an unwavering determination and a passion for justice; navigating countries with punitive and capricious legal systems with unprecedented success. In her captivating keynotes, she explores the global human rights economy and shares how and why we should all pay attention to—and take full advantage of—the rule of law.
Kimberley Motley is the first and only Westerner to practice law in Afghanistan’s courts. She spends nine months of the year living in Afghanistan, defending foreigners to the country, embassies and ambassadors, and women and children in human rights cases. Having independently won freedom for countless victims—such as a six-year-old child bride, and a British ex-soldier accused of bribery—Motley is a registered attorney for more than 20 embassies. Her book, Lawless, tells her story of relentless drive and remarkable vision to bring 'justness' to the voiceless in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Inspiring and fascinating, Lawless explores Motley’s radical approach to holding a complex legal system accountable to all citizens, overturning sentences for people subjected to appalling miscarriages of justice in the process.
The feature documentary about her work, Motley’s Law, won the Grand Jury Prize at DOC NYC, New York’s Documentary Festival. Her expert legal work and legal research and precedent has earned international attention with segments on CNN, the BBC, NBC, and Dan Rather Reports, as well as articles in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post, among many others. Motley has also published several articles on juvenile justice and contemporary legal issues in Afghanistan. In her lectures around the world (including at TEDGlobal), Motley shares her breadth of international law and her experiences handling criminal, commercial, civil, and human rights issues. She is the daughter of a North Korean refugee mother and an ex-military African American father, and initially served as an attorney with the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office, where she litigated hundreds of criminal, civil and juvenile cases.