Ann Freedman
DV
Fall 2010
I. Lawyering in Cases involving IPV
A. A Model For Legal Representation in DV Cases
1. Representing Clients Who Have Been Abused
a. Intro:
i. Since the 70s advocated and lawyers have been working to transform the legal system’s response to intimate partner violence, particularly attitudes towards victims that guided those responses.
ii. Although stereotypes are slow to die, reform has been successful in prompting legal reforms, and have resulted in many women receiving more sympathetic treatment within the legal system.
b. Shalleck, “Theory and Experience in Constructing the Relationship Between Lawyers and Client: Representing Women Who Have Been Abused.”
i. While acknowledging the importance of the legal reforms made over the last quarter century, some feminist theorist have indentified harms that abused women in intimate relationships have suffered under the legal regime resulting from the changes that have been implemented.
a.)First, the construct of the “battered woman” as essentializing” – it defines her entire identity, marginalizing other aspect of her identity.
b.)Second, the critics view the battering construct as essentializing because it treats intimate abuse as a single experience, where in reality it is usually as cycle of violence.
c.) Third “battered women” are portrayed as victims and powerless. Women who fit this stereotype are denied the opportunity to resist, and those who do try and assert themselves, are often left outside of the sphere of protection by the legal developments regarding DV.
d.)Fourth, the construct of the battered woman, puts the emphasis on the battered woman, rather on the man who is violent.
e.) Fifth, these 4 characteristics of the battered woman lead many women not to recognize themselves or their experiences in the standard narrative of DV. In order to secure what legal protections exist, they often must violate their own understandings of themselves and conform to the dominant stereotype.
f.) Sixth, using legal remedies may create additional dangers for women who have been abused rather than ensuring or even increasing their safety or the safety of their children.
c. Notes and Questions
i. Unintended Consequences.
ii. Who Knows Best?
d. Ann Shalleck, “Theory and Experience In Constructing the Relationship between Lawyer and Client: Representing Women Who Have Been Abused.”
i. Reflection on Experience
a.) Lawyers should reflect on their own experiences and feelings about violence or powerlessness in intimate relationships, which is necessary for three reasons
01. Empathy with the client’s situation
02. Understanding the pervasive and complex nature of DV – the lawyer can see the DV is not a problem of the “other” but a shared experience
03. Only with reflection can the lawyer respectfully respond to the client’s decisions – not judging
ii. Recognition of the Fluidity of the Lawyer-Client Relationship
a.) A women who is in an abusive relationship and entered the legal system is often in the process of coming to understand the relationship and herself within that relationship – as those dynamics change, she can bring instability to the relationship with her lawyer.
b.)The fluid character of the relationship has 2 components
01. It helps to affirm the non-judgmental attitude toward the client – if we don’t judge, she can figure out what she wants and what is best for her (948-949)
02. The purpose of the relationship is not just to help her achieve what she wants, but to help her figure out what she wants.
iii. Working Collaboratively with Clients
a.) Not only are legal remedies limited in their effectiveness in stopping or reducing violence, but they can interfere with a woman’s ability to develop for herself an understanding of the violence in her intimate relationship and responses that enable her to alter the situation in ways that meet her changing needs
iv. Developing Responses that Enable Clients to Take Steps that Are Viable With Their Particular Situation
v. Making Time
a.) Each of the elements of lawyering indentified above demands significant and often unpredictable allocations of time.
II. The Dynamics of DV
A. The Pervasiveness of DV
1. Casey SC struck down the spousal notification requirement as unconstitutional. In the opinion the Court held that DV was a widespread problem with a severe impact on women’s reproductive freedom – see page 9.
a. AMA published a summary which indicates that in an average 12 month period approximate 12 million women are victims of sever assaults by their male partners, and these numbers are marked underestimates
b. According to the AMA, true incidents of partner violence are probably double the above estimates, or four million severely assaulted women per year. Thus on the average day nearly 11,000 women are severely assaulted by their male partners in the U.S.
c. Many women stay because they perceive no alternative.
d. The ABA commission on DV also gathered stats:
e. One in 4 women in the US will likely experience DV during her lifetime and women account for 85% of the victims of DV.
i. Young women, ages 18-24 experience the highest rate of DV.
ii. The number one killer of African American women ages 15-34 is homicide at the hands of a current or former intimate partner.
iii. Each year 3.3 million children are exposed to violence by members against their mothers or female caretakers.
iv. Police encounter at least half a million children a year during DV arrests. There is an overlap of 30 – 60 percent between violence against children and violence against women in the same families.
v. Studies show 25-50% of disputed custody cases involve DV
vi. 11% of lesbians and 15% of gay men reported violence by their partner
vii. 21% of all violent crimes against women were committed by an intimate partner vs. 4% by men.
viii.SEE MORE STATE PAGE 9
2. Notes and Questions
a. Considering the Statistics.
b. Sources of Information. Studies have widely varying results depending on the source of their information. Stats drawn from criminal justice sources, for example, catch only those incidents of violence that are reported to and recorded by the police – and that are recorded as incidents of domestic violence. Reporting practices may vary from state to state, and even community to community. And many do not report to the police. Many social science studies, depend on self-reporting, raising issues about their reliability.
B.Social and Psychological Aspects of Domestic Violence
1. Overview
a. DV is all about power and control.
b. Three stages: 1) tension building, 2) acute explosion, 3) honeymoon period
2. The Basis for DV
a. Aggressors do not have a problem with anger, they have an unhealthy desire to exercise power and control over their victim; desire to dominate the victim; coercive control is not merely the goal sought through DV is the primary means; the desire to dominate leads to violence, both physical and psychological
b. Types of Control:
i. Isolation
ii. Emotional Abuse
iii. Economic Abuse
iv. Physical and/or Sexual Abuse
v. Using Children
vi. Threats
vii. Using “male privilege”
viii.Intimidation
ix. Minimizing, denying, blaming
c. History of Negative Conduct
i. The type of conduct that an aggressor uses to exercise power and control over a victim can better be seen as course of conduct over
r own
c.) Afraid for themselves or their children
d.)Afraid losing their sense of self
e.) Want to leave before the kill the aggressor
f.) Trade-off: violent free life is better than the material things bestowed by the aggressor
C.Women’s Experiences of Abusive Relationships
1. Broken Vows Video
2. Angela Browne, “Courtship and Early Marriage: From Affection to Assault, When Battered Women Kill” (1987)
a. The First Beating
b. First Impressions
i. Women noted these men were, in the first weeks and month they knew them, the most romantic and attentive lovers they’d ever had. Early and intense interest, constant concern with the woman’s activities, wanting to do everything together. Unusually communicative. Convincer her she was cared for.
c. Early Warnings
i. Victims have difficulty interpreting assaultive behavior from someone the knew so well. Violent episodes are attributed to specific circumstances and the relationships continue despite the outburst. The longer the couple is involved and the more serious their commitment, the more likely they are to remain together after a physical attack. It is sometimes difficult to separate the warning signs of future violence from more typical romantic interactions. A clustering of these behavior, particularly in the area of intrusion and possessive control, should be carefully evaluated for the history that might underlie their outward expressions
ii. Intrusion. Early on they seemed missed or cared for leading to a requirement that they account where they had been every hour of the day. Many behavior the women initially thought romantic, over time became the triggers that led to their assault
iii. Isolation. Women remembered that early on their partners had not wanted them to be around their friends and had shown little interest in the women’s friends. The need for constant knowledge of the women’s whereabouts, combined with a preference for not letting the woman interact with people other than themselves, led in most cases to severe restrictions of the women’s activities. Such isolation left the women at great risk once the abuse began, reducing their resources and the chance that others would be aware of their plight or intervene.
iv. Possession. The dynamics changed for these women from the gentle persuasion reported as early characteristics with the abuses to forceful possession without regard to the women’s wishes or well-being. Early on the women remembered the man guided them through a room or indicated by his touch that they were his.
v. Jealously. Many violent incidents were triggered by a partner’s jealous rage and, in almost all cases, the men’s jealous suspicions far exceed all bounds of possibility by the end of the relationship
vi. Prone to Anger. The women noticed that in the early days the men seemed easily angered. Early outburst of violence were directed at objects or pets. Their laughter would turn to fury without warning and was hard to predict.
