REPRESENTING WOMEN

Every single woman and girl I have represented over the past decade is a survivor of physical or sexual abuse by a man. The abuser is often a man who they know well and who violated their trust. The irony, of course, is I represented these women and girls when they were charged with a crime.

What infuriates me most about criminal justice in this country is the way in which we punish people instead of helping them. All of the young women I have represented never received proper therapy or treatment for the trauma they suffered. They were left to fend for themselves. And that put them in desperate and dangerous situations. They did things they would have never done had their life circumstances been different.

When I meet these women, they have often reached rock bottom. They have done something horrible out of fear or desperation or they have found themselves committing a crime with a man who said he’d protect them, but instead, put them in harm’s way.

I have been able to use my experience as a lawyer and a woman to fight for these clients by sharing their unique stories. I make sure that their trauma does not go unheard any longer by preparing letters to prosecutors explaining their circumstances, hiring experts who can provide insight into how abuse affects behavior, and preparing creative defenses for trial that show a jury what this woman has suffered and how it impacted her actions.

You need someone who is not only experienced in these types of cases but also empathetic and able to understand your story so deeply that they can relay it to a prosecutor, judge, or jury. This is not a skill every lawyer has, but it is one I have cultivated over a decade of holding hands and listening to women and fighting for them tooth and nail in court.