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Who Has Control In The Courtroom?: Maine Lawyers' Process For Client Representation Family Matters Cases And How Perceptions Of Coercive Control Impact Their Process, Katie Seelen Msw

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Supervising Professor: Rachel Casey Informed by the researcher’s work with women struggling through separation and child custody legal proceedings with their abusive male co-parents, the study seeks to understand if and how Maine’s court system considers intimate partner violence (IPV) in family matters cases. The research aims to gain specific insight into family lawyers’ understanding and consideration of coercive control—a term encompassing gender-based, psychologically abusive and controlling behaviors—when representing clients in divorce and parental rights and responsibilities cases. Under the label “post-separation abuse,” growing literature demonstrates the extent to which coercive control among separating co-parents manifests through the family court …