The Domestic Violence Project: An intersection of Art and Work

By Jessica Caldas, Project Coordinator, Domestic Violence and Guardian ad Litem Programs

I first began working for Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation doing six hours per week of data entry per week for the Domestic Violence Project.  When I asked to volunteer at the Safe Families Office, where the primary work of the project is done, I honestly had no idea what was in store.  I had no background in the law or with domestic violence, but I felt like I was seeing only a small piece of a large and confusing puzzle that was the Domestic Violence Project.  In order to be really effective I needed to understand the entire program. 

The walk-in Safe Families Office is a far cry from the quiet, all-to-myself office where I quietly updated a database with client information.  It is unpredictable, often hectic.  A box of tissues sits upon every surface.  I sit and talk face-to-face with client after client, hearing their stories of abuse and confusion and fear, while their children color in our children’s corner, or tug on mom’s sleeve to show the toy they just discovered.   In this office, the numbers and letters I enter into that database acquire names and faces and stories, and the weight of those stories bears down on me. 

Outside of AVLF, I am an artist.  My art helped me process and begin to make sense of the struggle of families I see each week at the Safe Families Office.   In my work I tried to express the powerlessness of our clients’ experiences, the utter lack of control.  Within the context of violent relationships, I have watched the objects we use every day become twisted into tools of fear, control, and cruelty - the major theme of my work.  I look forward to expanding this body of work to include the more wonderful side of these stories-the side that contains the hope and the recovery and the ability to heal.  Although I have been frustrated and angered by the things our clients go through, I know I will never be able to fully comprehend the journey survivors must travel and the depth and range of feelings that they must manage.

View Jessica's Artwork Below:

Celebrating Service: Pro Bono Awards

AVLF offers congratulations again to the winners of the annual AVLF Pro Bono Awards, announced by Michael Lucas at the recent Celebrating Service Luncheon.

The S. Phillip Heiner Award was given this year to a law firm that is a champion of private volunteer legal service to the poor - the law firm of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan.

The first “Outstanding Paralegal Service” award was given to to a dedicated and deserving group. Corey Lyles, Eveth McPherson, and Keli Jones have served hundreds of low-income clients, as collectively they have volunteered over 40 Saturdays in the first year of this initiative. 

Madison Burnett  received the 2012 AVLF Volunteer of the Year. Few in our legal community have demonstrated a deeper commitment to the legal rights of women and girls than Madison and her colleagues Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi L.L.P., offering passionate direct representation of our clients who would otherwise face the legal process without information or counsel. 

King & Spalding attorney Jason Edgecombe was awarded the Excellence in Pro Bono Service Award. Jason has represented dozens of low-income tenants during his 9 years at the firm, including 7 clients in the last year alone!  And since 2005, Jason has coordinated all of K&S’s pro bono efforts for this Program – providing training for his colleagues; recruiting volunteers and mentoring new attorneys through their first cases.

The Domestic Violence Project’s Volunteer of the Year was given to Kevin Linder, who since he began volunteering with AVLF's Domestic Violence Project has represented victims of violence in an unheard-of twelve protective order cases. 

Congratulations and thanks to our esteemed group of volunteer champions!

A Lesson from My First Year of Practice: A dishonest client is not necessarily an undeserving client

by Lindsey Siegel, AVLF Staff Attorney and Skadden Fellow

A few months ago, a client lied to me when she was on the verge of losing her housing.  Luckily, she admitted the truth relatively early in my representation of her, and we were able to explain her actions honestly and still prevent her from becoming homeless.  Though the vast majority of my clients are honest, in the past year I have had more than one client be less than honest or fail to give me key information during an interview.  When I discovered the dishonesty, my first reaction was to question everything she’d told me and, occasionally, to lose enthusiasm in representing her.  Since then, I’ve thought about why it can feel so disappointing when my clients lie, how it impacts my work, and why clients are sometimes dishonest in the first place.

Because at my core I believe in the righteousness of the work we do at AVLF, I can get fairly emotionally involved in my clients’ cases.  When I encounter a client who has lied, it is hard to shake that initial feeling of betrayal.  It can also be difficult to represent someone when a harmful fact arises for the first time in the middle of a hearing.  In fact, I can attribute at least one negative case outcome to this scenario, even though my client had a genuine need for assistance.  Despite lies or omissions, I continue to be concerned about my clients’ abilities to maintain stable housing and employment, secure government benefits, and most importantly, obtain physical safety.  Like many poverty lawyers, I sometimes obsess about the significant effect losing one of these cases has on my clients’ and their families’ lives.

It is also difficult to navigate the various ethical issues that arise when representing a client who has been dishonest about some fact, especially when that fact is central to our case.  If I come to believe prior to a hearing that a client has lied to me, I worry about proffering false testimony.  Of course, if I insist that the client admit the truth under oath, we may lose the case.  Withdrawing from the case is another option, though it is unappealing to leave a client unrepresented (as they almost always will remain) when the stakes are so high.  Though I memorized the rules of professional conduct in preparation for my practice of law, implementing them with real clients who need assistance has been much more challenging than I would have guessed it would be.

At AVLF, the vast majority of our clients have very few resources, despite working or looking for work to support their families.  Often their basic needs—safety, housing, food—are not being met, and they are doing what they can for their and their children’s survival.  I have learned that sometimes a client is going to say what she thinks we want to hear in order to obtain assistance.  Other clients believe we will judge them if they admit to making certain decisions; and past experiences with government or social service agencies may have taught them this lesson.  My clients’ past experiences and economic realities have influenced my impression of their occasional dishonesty.

Practicing this type of law involves recognizing that even our clients who have experienced abuse and injustice aren’t perfect, just as we are not perfect in our representation of them.  The best we can do is try to discover the truth, recognize the potential complications in our representation, and understand the barriers our clients face.  And if we imagine stepping into their shoes, we may wonder what we would do in a similarly desperate situation.

A GAWL FOUNDATION GRANT SPREADS GOOD NEWS

Theresa is 34. She is married and has a six year old son and a three year old daughter. She has family; she has friends; she is employed; her colleagues think she is happy. In fact, she is terrified that her husband, again tonight, will drink and beat her, perhaps with the belt he has begun using more regularly. Her deepest fear is that he will also hurt their children.

Theresa is not alone, but she and other victims of intimate partner violence do not always know of the array of services that may be available to them. In particular, she may not be aware of the Safe Families Office, a partnership among the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, Partnership Against Domestic Violence and the Family Division of the Superior Court of Fulton County. The Safe Families Office is the only courthouse-based free legal support program of its kind in Georgia, serving survivors of domestic violence and stalking. This court-based clinic assists every person in Fulton County seeking legal protection from intimate partner violence, including elder abuse and stalking, which numbers close to 2,500 people each year.  The clinic also assists victims from outside the County seeking protection from abusers residing inside the county - serving women from 17 Georgia counties last year.  The clinic is located in a reconfigured courtroom dedicated solely to this project.  In this space, the Safe Families Office is able to serve as many people as need help; it has a Children’s Center and enough space for confidential conversations with several different clients to happen simultaneously.

But how do victims who need the services offered by the Safe Families Office learn of its existence?  To help address this question, AVLF turned to the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers (GAWL) Foundation, and earlier this year AVLF was the fortunate recipient of a generous GAWL Foundation grant.  The grant allowed AVLF to print postcards and related written materials in Spanish and in English, which have been and continue to be widely disseminated through community events, libraries, clerks’ offices, and partner organizations to help increase the number of victims who know about the Safe Families Office.

Founded in 1928, the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers serves the diverse interests of women lawyers in Georgia. The mission of the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers Foundation is to encourage philanthropy by women lawyers in Georgia for the benefit of the greater community.  As part of fulfilling its mission, the GAWL Foundation gives out grants to other non-profit organizations that provide direct services to those in need in our local communities.  Grants typically range from $500 to $2,000 and are awarded three times a year in the fall, winter, and spring.  Recipients are selected using the following guidelines:

1.        Organizations that provide free legal services to disadvantaged women and girls;
2.        Organizations that provide free services to disadvantaged women and girls in the legal system; and
3.        Organizations that provide free services to disadvantaged women and girls.

The GAWL Foundation is accepting applications for the fall cycle through October 12, 2012.  Feel free to contact Diana Cohen at GAWL.grants@gmail.com with specific questions regarding the grant application process.  Please contact Christina Baugh at GAWL.foundation@gmail.com with other questions about the GAWL Foundation.   

AVLF is proud to report that the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence has called the Safe Families Office a national Best Practices model.  We are proud that our work has confirmed that access to civil legal representation has the most impact on a survivor’s ability to make a permanent break from her abuser. And we are proud of and grateful for our affiliation with GAWL and the GAWL Foundation; because of their gift, the Theresa's of the world may yet be safe.  

AVLF Domestic Violence Project – First Impressions of Our Newest Volunteers

By Jane Warring, AVLF Junior Board Member 

Two months ago, AVLF’s Domestic Violence Team - Liz Whipple, along with Lindsey Siegel and Jessica Caldas - visited the Atlanta office of Robins, Kaplan, Miller, & Ciresi, LLP—a law firm specializing in IP, business, and insurance litigation—to train partners, associates, paralegals, and staff members to take temporary protective order cases.  The AVLF Team explained that the advocate fills three main roles:  First, the advocate works with the victim to determine his/her goals and needs, including needs related to protection, child custody, divisions of property and financial issues.  Second, the advocate organizes the victim’s evidence so his/her story can be quickly and effectively relayed to the Court.  Third, the advocate negotiates with the respondent to obtain an order by consent or, if the respondent does not consent, presents the evidence to the judge to obtain an order directly from the Court.  Since this training session, RKMC has worked with over fifteen clients, and attorneys are taking new cases every week.

I have taken four cases since the training.  From a volunteer perspective, these are perfect pro bono cases.  The clients have a true, immediate need, the evidence is overwhelmingly in your favor, and the matter generally takes less than one week from start to finish.

“Although many of these cases share the same basic formula in the courtroom, the unique facts of each petitioner’s situation provides the opportunity for volunteers to think and work creatively,” says RKMC associate Brandon Arnold.  Brandon Arnold and Eric Swartz have dealt with child visitation and support issues in their cases.  In granting protective orders, the law gives the court discretion to order specific visitation and support arrangements agreed to by the parties or requested by one party, provided that the Court determines that such arrangements are in the child’s “best interest.”  As such, where the mother approves of some visitation rights for the father, the hearing may involve both negotiating these issues with the respondent and convincing the judge that a particular arrangement is appropriate. 

In addition, volunteers have noticed that these cases sometimes involve interesting types of evidence, such as text messages or camera phone photos.   RKMC partner Bill Stanhope recently used a camera phone photo of the respondent with large amounts of cash to rebut the respondent’s contention that he could not afford child support. The more relaxed courtroom environment makes presenting these items easier than in some other courts. 

Bill Stanhope says that “the key is to make sure you understand why the client has gone to court to obtain a temporary order and figure out how much practical relief the Court can provide given the circumstances and scope of the law.”  In one of Jane Warring’s cases, the client had been living with the respondent for over 5 years—she paid the rent and he paid the utilities.  “When you’re getting the protective order, you need to think about things like—Do we need to help get her assistance for the next few months while she adapts to paying rent and utilities?  The goal is to send these victims out into the world with legal protection, but also with the ability to start over and break from an abusive past,” says Jane Warring.

In the end, these cases keep RKMC attorneys, and volunteer attorneys around Atlanta, coming back for more.  “The volunteer experience is both exciting and gratifying.  You are able to assist clients with immediate personal needs and provide them with a means to protect themselves both emotionally and physically, all while gaining practical legal experience.  It is truly a win-win situation!” says RKMC associate Elizabeth Thomas, who has assisted four clients obtain 12-month protective orders.

Email Jessica Caldas at jcaldas@avlf.org  if you are interested in volunteering.