Raising the Bar: Improving the Representation of Children in Family Law Cases Marked by Domestic Violence

• Jurisdiction: Wyoming,United States
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 6 Pg. 10
• Publication year: 2008
• Pages: 10
• Year: 2008
• topic: Family Law

Wyoming Bar Journal 2008.

Vol. 31, No. 6, 10. Raising the Bar: Improving the Representation of Children in Family Law Cases Marked by Domestic Violence

Wyoming Bar Journal
Issue: December, 2008

Author: Dona Playton

Raising the Bar: Improving the Representation of Children in Family Law Cases Marked by Domestic Violence

A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.

Domestic violence is relevant in a wide variety of criminal and civil cases. In family law, evidence of domestic violence may impact distribution of assets, immigration issues, appropriateness of mediation, custody, relocation and appropriate parental education programs when domestic violence is present. In cases where child custody is at issue, it is imperative that clients are screened for evidence of domestic violence. Lawyers, including judges and guardians ad litem (GALs), need ongoing and updated training related to domestic violence. Domestic violence can harm not only the adult victim of the abuse, but the children residing in the household. This article will address the need for more emphasis on domestic violence training in order to establish effective standards and policies for GALs in high conflict divorce and custody cases.

While most of the academic attention on family law and domestic violence has been directed at the impacts of the violence on children, lawyers for battered women continue to face a legal system where the violence is too often minimized or denied by those involved in the proceeding. Any sympathy toward a victim or calls for accountability against the batterer in a criminal context can easily turn to disdain or suspicious doubt toward the victim for even bringing up abuse allegations in the family...