Lawyers and Legal Representation

2021 ◽  
pp. 150-183
Author(s):  
Heather Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Unethical Behavior ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Positive Experience ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
Legal Advice ◽  
Legal Processes

This chapter explores women’s involvement with lawyers after experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). While women generally had a positive experience with their own lawyers, many women reported difficulties in getting access to and retaining state-funded legal aid. Women who paid privately for legal advice and representation often faced mounting debts, causing significant anxiety. Some women found their stress and debt were amplified by their ex-partner’s abuse of legal processes and, in some cases, the unethical behavior of their ex-partner’s lawyer. For many women their circumstances in relation to legal representation and potential costs influenced their decisions about going to law. This chapter also explores the range of strategies and compromises women employed to access legal support and the stresses and challenges they faced when they were only partially represented or unrepresented.

DIVORCE MEDIATION WITH AND WITHOUT LEGAL REPRESENTATION: A FOCUS ON INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE AND ABUSE

2010 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie J. A. Beck ◽  
Michele E. Walsh ◽  
Robin H. Ballard ◽  
Amy Holtzworth-Munroe ◽  
Amy G. Applegate ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
Divorce Mediation

Women, Intimate Partner Violence, and the Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Family Court ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Processes

This book explores how women from diverse backgrounds interact with the law in response to intimate partner violence, over time. Every year, millions of women globally turn to law to help them live lives free and safe from violence. Women engage with child protection services and police. They apply for civil protection orders and family court orders to help them manage their children’s contact with a violent father, and take special visa pathways to avoid deportation following separation from an abuser. Women are often compelled to interact with law, through their abuser’s myriad legal applications against them. While separation may seem like a solution, it often accelerates legal engagement, providing new opportunities for continued abuse. Countless women who have experienced intimate partner violence are enmeshed in overlapping, complex, and often inconsistent legal processes. They have both fleeting and longer-term connections with legal system actors. Their stories demonstrate how abusers harness multiple aspects of the legal process, and its actors, to continue their abuse. They also highlight the regular failure of legal processes and actors to comprehend the significance of nonphysical abuse. Women show how legal system actors’ common expectation that separation is a single event, rather than a process, has implications for their connections with law and the outcomes they achieve. From time to time, the women in this study attained the safety and closure they sought from law, sometimes in circular and unexpected ways, but their narratives demonstrate the level of endurance, tenacity, and time this often required.

Guns, Alcohol, and Intimate Partner Violence: The Epidemiology of Female Suicide in New Mexico

Crisis ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenora Olson ◽  
Frank Huyler ◽  
Arthur W Lynch ◽  
Lynne Fullerton ◽  
Deborah Werenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Injury Death ◽  
Female Suicide ◽  
Blood Alcohol Levels ◽  
Associated Risk Factors

Suicide is among the leading causes of death in the United States, and in women the second leading cause of injury death overall. Previous studies have suggested links between intimate partner violence and suicide in women. We examined female suicide deaths to identify and describe associated risk factors. We reviewed all reports from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator for female suicide deaths occurring in New Mexico from 1990 to 1994. Information abstracted included demographics, mechanism of death, presence of alcohol/drugs, clinical depression, intimate partner violence, health problems, and other variables. Annual rates were calculated based on the 1990 census. The New Mexico female suicide death rate was 8.2/100,000 persons per year (n = 313), nearly twice the U. S. rate of 4.5/100,000. Non-Hispanic whites were overrepresented compared to Hispanics and American Indians. Decedents ranged in age from 14 to 93 years (median = 43 years). Firearms accounted for 45.7% of the suicide deaths, followed by ingested poisons (29.1%), hanging (10.5%), other (7.7%), and inhaled poisons (7.0%). Intimate partner violence was documented in 5.1% of female suicide deaths; in an additional 22.1% of cases, a male intimate partner fought with or separated from the decedent immediately preceding the suicide. Nearly two-thirds (65.5%) of the decedents had alcohol or drugs present in their blood at autopsy. Among decedents who had alcohol present (34.5%), blood alcohol levels were far higher among American Indians compared to Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites (p = .01). Interpersonal conflict was documented in over 25% of cases, indicating that studies of the mortality of intimate partner violence should include victims of both suicide and homicide deaths to fully characterize the mortality patterns of intimate partner violence.

Intimate Partner Violence and Help-Seeking

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solveig Lelaurain ◽  
Pierluigi Graziani ◽  
Grégory Lo Monaco
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Social Concern ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Inhibiting Factors ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global social concern: many women are affected by this phenomenon and by the difficulty of putting an end to it. This review of the literature aims to identify help-seeking facilitating and inhibiting factors in response to IPV. It was carried out on the PsycINFO and Medline databases using the following keywords: “intimate partner violence,” “domestic violence,” “help-seeking,” and “help-seeking barrier.” Ninety out of 771 eligible publications were included on the basis of inclusion criteria. The results highlight that (1) research on this phenomenon is very recent and underdeveloped in Europe, (2) theoretical and conceptual frameworks are poorly developed and extended, (3) there is a significant impact of violence characteristics (e.g., severity, type) on help-seeking, and (4) help-seeking is a complex and multifactorial process influenced by a wide range of factors simultaneously individual and social. To conclude, these findings lead us to propose a psychosocial conceptualization of the help-seeking process by indicating how the levels of explanation approach in social psychology can be applied to this field of research in order to increase our understanding of this phenomenon.

Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the European Union: A Systematic Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Gracia ◽  
Marisol Lila ◽  
Faraj A. Santirso
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Cochrane Library ◽  
Effective Prevention ◽  
Partner Violence Against Women ◽  
The Eu

Abstract. Attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) are increasingly recognized as central to understanding of this major social and public health problem, and guide the development of more effective prevention efforts. However, to date this area of research is underdeveloped in western societies, and in particular in the EU. The present study aims to provide a systematic review of quantitative studies addressing attitudes toward IPVAW conducted in the EU. The review was conducted through Web of Science, PsychINFO, Medline, EMBASE, PUBMED, and the Cochrane Library, in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) recommendations. This review aimed to identify empirical studies conducted in the EU, published in English in peer-reviewed journals from 2000 to 2018, and analyzing attitudes toward IPVAW. A total of 62 of 176 eligible articles were selected according to inclusion criteria. Four sets of attitudes toward IPVAW were identified as the main focus of the studies: legitimation, acceptability, attitudes toward intervention, and perceived severity. Four main research themes regarding attitudes toward IPVAW emerged: correlates of attitudes, attitudes as predictors, validation of scales, and attitude change interventions. Although interest in this research area has been growing in recent years, the systematic review revealed important gaps in current knowledge on attitudes toward IPVAW in the EU that limits its potential to inform public policy. The review outlines directions for future study and suggests that to better inform policy making, these future research efforts would benefit from an EU-level perspective.

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