NCJ Number
161749
Journal
Albany Law Review Volume: 58 Issue: 4 Dated: (1995) Pages: 1027-1062
Date Published
1995
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This article argues that family lawyers should use a protocol designed to identify which of their women clients are battered.
Abstract
A protocol which identifies which family lawyers' women clients are battered is a crucial first step to effective representation. The article focuses particularly on non-indigent battered women who enter a fee-paying arrangement with their family lawyers. The author argues that many middle- and upper-class battered women are never identified as such by their family lawyers, and suggests reasons why lawyers fail to make such identifications. She also discusses the importance of identifying battering, proposes an identification protocol based on a model developed by the American Medical Association, and considers the question of whether such an identification protocol would work in the legal field. Realizing that some battering victims may not reveal the abuse, she suggests ways for lawyers to remain open to the possibility of abuse even when a client initially denies that she is battered. She considers the problem of women who are not abused but claim to their lawyers that they are, and discusses the need to move battering into the mainstream of family lawyers' consciousness, including a discussion of the silence about middle-class battering in current family law literature and Continuing Legal Education programs. Footnotes