It matters to this one.

• Author: Korobov, Kristina
• Position: Fight against domestic violence

FOR THOSE PROSECUTORS who think that all they can do to address domestic violence cases is to prosecute aggressively in their home courts, think again. One rural prosecutor from Montana was able to affect DV investigations, prosecutions, and advocacy across his entire state.

In April 2010, Brett Linneweber contacted NDAA's National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women about domestic violence training opportunities in Montana. Brett is the county attorney in Park County (Livingston), Montana, and as such, he was well aware of funding issues and training availability statewide; moreover, he knew that the economic downturn made it more difficult for prosecutors and police to attend out-of-state conferences. He was sincerely concerned about the lack of locally accessible, national-level training on issues related to domestic violence and sexual assault, especially as it relates to the needs of rural prosecutors. It was his desire to bring a powerful training to his state that led Brett to schedule a meeting with me. When we first spoke, Brett told me that he thought NDAA wouldn't do a national domestic violence conference in Montana, as it wasn't a typical conference site.

I am the senior attorney and acting director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women, which is located just outside of DC at the NDAA Headquarters m Alexandria. I bring over ten years of prosecution experience to this position and have trained hundreds of prosecutors and allied professionals since being hired in February 2009. One of my projects has been to design and present statewide or jurisdiction-specific multi-day trainings on domestic violence and/or sexual assault. The situation Brett described to me was not unusual. In this economy, every prosecutor is challenged to do more with fewer resources. This was our starting point.

Over the next few months, Brett and his office assistant, Kim Lavender, became NDAA partners in planning the Montana Institute on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence, which would be a three-day multi-disciplinary conference to be held in Bozeman. Together, we designed the agenda, coordinated conference announcements, and planned location and meeting space. The faculty would be simple: Brent Berldey (assistant director of programs at NDAA and a former Utah prosecutor) and me. We would handle most of the presentations, and Brett "volunteered" to deliver a presentation. Because Mr. Linneweber knew the...