Family Law Section Meeting
Rachel Elkin
“Family Law and Working with Domestic Violence Survivors”
Nationally, one in four women will identify experiencing domestic violence within her relationship. In Texas, one in three women will be in an abusive relationship in her lifetime. The most dangerous time for a woman is when she leaves a relationship, and separating from an abusive relationship does not end the abusive partner’s need to exercise power and control over the survivor, or the children of the relationship. Family law attorneys encounter these tumultuous and adversarial cases frequently, but they are often marked as “high conflict” rather than the family violence cases that they are. This CLE will introduce the dynamics of family violence and the nature of power and control, how these behaviors continue after the survivor has left the relationship, and how family law attorneys can incorporate safety measures into their practice to protect adult and child survivors alike.
