Barbara A. Martinez is a member of Holland & Knight’s Global Compliance and Investigation Team in the firm’s Miami office.  She focuses her practice on white-collar defense, internal corporate investigations, as well as corporate compliance and training related to white collar matters, human trafficking, and money laundering.   

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Ms. Martinez served as the Chief of the Special Prosecutions Section at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. In this capacity, she tried human trafficking cases and supervised federal prosecutors who handled cases involving international and domestic human trafficking, money laundering, child exploitation, extortion, international kidnappings, and other transnational crimes.  Ms. Martinez was the Human Trafficking Coordinator and the Project Safe Childhood Coordinator for the Southern District of Florida for more than a decade. As the Coordinator for these programs, Ms. Martinez spearheaded coordination efforts between law enforcement, prosecutors, non-governmental organizations, and private industries to more effectively prevent and identify human trafficking and child exploitation, as well as to investigate and successfully prosecute cases.  She teaches a human trafficking seminar at the University of Miami School of Law. Ms. Martinez also previously worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Economic Crimes Section and a Department of Justice (DOJ) Trial Attorney for the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division in Washington, D.C.

Some of her notable awards for her anti-trafficking efforts include the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service, DOJ, 2018; Women of Distinction Award, Dade County Bar Association Government Committee, 2018; Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow, Harvard Law School, 2016-2017; Director's Award for Superior Performance, DOJ, 2015; Top Prosecutor Award, Women in Federal Law Enforcement, 2013; Prosecutor Hero Award, Shared Hope International, 2013; Outstanding Partnership Coalition Group Award, DOJ, 2011.