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Changing Course In The Anti-Domestic Violence Legal Movement: From Safety To Security, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Engaging With The State: The Growing Reliance On Lawyers And Judges To Protect Battered Women, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

The passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (“VAWA II”) marked an important milestone in the evolution of the domestic violence movement. VAWA II created, among other things, a complex system for state and federal funding in all fifty states to provide civil legal assistance to battered women. Its passage completed a process that began in the early 1980s when domestic violence advocates shifted their focus from grass roots efforts to help battered women and their children leave abusive partners to building alliances with government and advocating for legal remedies to assist battered women. This paper looks …

Lawyering For Social Change: The Power Of The Narrative In Domestic Violence Law Reform, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

The role of the narrative or story in legal discourse has been explored and developed in legal scholarship over the last several years. The goals of the various calls for more storytelling in the legal context vary. They generally relate, however, to a desire to move away from exclusive reliance on abstract legal argumentation to persuade. The goals of ‘storytellers‘ are also linked to furthering an understanding of the dynamics of oppression based on race or gender, or both.

The judicial and legislative processes have always included a narrative component. Clinical legal scholarship has also explored the critical role of …