The challenge of coordinating a community response to domestic violence is multi-faceted. Lawyers are self-selected and credentialed to perform independently within a structured,hierarchical legal system. All too often viewed as elitist,self-interested and powerful,lawyers may not be warmly welcomed into community based collaborations. Once admitted into discussion, lawyers often find that working within a collaborative, interdisciplinary and community-based framework is frustrating, time-consuming and inefficient even when they perceive positive results flowing from this work. The problem is compounded because the collaborating attorneys' efforts are seldom valued within their professional community and most experience their legal colleagues as disinterested, skeptical or even hostile to solutions advocated by those outside the legal or law enforcement fraternity. Apart from the individuals involved, the legal system itself resists the types of changes that a coordinated community response to domestic violence necessarily involves. Traditionally, abuse prevention has been viewed solely from the lens of criminal law, which is far more concerned about conduct than motivation; enforcement than prevention; and punishment than intervention or treatment. Only recently has the legal system begun to address meaningful domestic abuse prevention through modifying its civil actions-strenghthening restraining orders, factoring the presence of battering into custody and visitation decisions, and expanding permissible tort litigation. To create a truly coordinated response to domestic violence, more (and even more problematic) legal issues must be addressed in the future, such as legally sanctioned economic inequality; discriminiation based on race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation; and balancing the rights of victims and defendants in criminal proceedings.
Learning Objectives: 1. To understand the construction of collaboration within aparticular community to respond to domestic violence 2. To be able to define multiple roles and lenses which activist attorneys bring to a community coalition
Keywords: Domestic Violence, Collaboration
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Northeastern University School of Law
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Faculty