Nationally, what gaps in their ability to help survivors do DV advocates experience when they limit their help to legal information, not legal advice?
Advocates are restricted in the services they can provide to survivors, and it is sometimes difficult for advocates to connect survivors to attorneys. When DV advocates are not able to provide legal advice, many survivors do not receive legal help because there is no help available. DV advocates are often the only help a survivor can get because there are not enough attorneys available. There is a lack of intermediary legal assistance options between expensive lawyers and legal aid further preventing advocates from being able to refer survivors to legal assistance.
Advocates are restricted in the services they can provide to survivors, and it is sometimes difficult for advocates to connect survivors to attorneys.
“It’s limited what we can do.”
– Organization Leader from the Southwest
“[There are] definitely gaps in services and really limited resources [available to survivors].”
– Organization Leader from the Northwest
“If we don’t have the means to be able to help them, then we’ll help refer them out to other legal services in town or like law firms that we know do cases that they would accept.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“I don’t have an attorney that can connect with every single survivor…I just don’t.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“I think out of maybe 20+ referrals I’ve made, I’ve only had one client case picked up for representation.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
For some advocates, being restricted from giving legal advice creates tension between what they know and what they are permitted to do.
“[Advocates are] here because they truly care about the client, and they want to see what’s best for the client, [and the client may be working with other providers] who may not have the client’s true interest at heart, so yea, there you see that tension [that] come[s] across right there.”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast
“[Advocates have] seen this so many times, and you feel really familiar with it, you’re still not an attorney and you still can’t give legal advice.”
– Organization Leader from the Northwest
“It’s very tempting to, even though I know the law based on how much I’ve worked with [it], that’s not my practice.”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast
“It’s a real tension for us, you know…I think we might be able to give some advice.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
Advocates and organization leaders acknowledged that there are simply not enough attorneys to meet the needs of survivors and it is difficult to make referrals to attorneys. Helpful legal aid services and pro bono attorneys to help survivors with their civil legal needs do exist. However, these services are often inaccessible to survivors due to the services not having the capacity to take on cases, or the survivor not meeting the financial requirements to qualify for help. Additionally, many outside organizations who might otherwise be able to help are over capacity overwhelmed.
“Most of these clients don’t know that they can have representation, they really don’t even know what the process is going on.”
– Organization Leader from the South
“[Survivors] don’t hear back from [legal aid] for weeks. And then like, I’m bothering them. And it’s like, you know, and it’s like, for a lot of crisis things, you don’t have weeks, you have like two days.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
When survivors have to go to outside resources to address their civil legal needs it can be frustrating because it prolongs the process. This includes that the outside services are often at capacity.
“I don’t think our landscape meets the civil legal needs of the people in our community.”
– Advocate from the South
“Most of the time, they [legal aid] don’t actually represent people in court. They give them like…unbundled legal advice [and that’s it].”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“Even if we get them an attorney, we don’t really have a person who’s going to give them service for [the] length of time that they’ll need.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“I know that even their services are limited in terms of the amount of attorneys that they are able to hire and able to afford to pay to then even be able to take cases pro bono for some people.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
Many organizations and advocates are not able to make referrals to attorneys for all survivors because there are not enough available attorneys. DV advocates provide many important services to survivors and act as a resource to guide survivors through court-involved processes.
“There’s just not enough, there’s not enough help for victims.”
– Advocate from the South
“They'[s] just not enough for like the amount of needs.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“The lack of affordable legal representation…it’s a huge barrier here.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
“[The biggest challenge is] a lack of staff in order to provide that in court representation.”
– Organization Leader from the South
“The most simple things like [survivors] don’t, they wouldn’t know how to do that without their advocate.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“Part of my job is like making sure that they are informed about the process, helping them navigate the courthouse, [which is] quite literally, it’s always a zoo, and it’s the least communicative place.”
– Advocate from the South
“I try to help the client come to court being [as] prepared as possible.”
– Advocate from the South
“There are times where I’m like, oh…you should definitely include this piece, because that’s helpful. And then I’m like, I don’t want to be getting into that area…but with the right training, I feel like that could be a good…area that like that trial prep specifically for saying yes, that’s helpful or no, no that’s not.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“[Survivors have a] lack of awareness of their rights, especially when the other person has a lawyer.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“There’s just a lack of awareness of like, their options.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
Legal aid is not able to serve all eligible survivors. Furthermore, a number of survivors make too much money to qualify for legal aid, but not enough to be able to pay bills and an attorney. There are very few attorneys available to provide services to the individuals in this income range.
“There’s either like the regular super expensive lawyers, or there’s legal aid, ad there’s not really anyone in between.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“Lawyers are always expensive.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
When DV advocates make referrals to attorneys, the advocate risks putting the survivor in a situation where they are re-traumatized: not all legal system actors are trained in trauma-informed practices and using trauma-informed procedures.
“The [attorneys] that are offering the like, more affordable services, they are definitely not trauma-informed.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“The [attorneys] don’t have the lens when they’re looking at legal strategy of…how to work from a place in space of assessing for power and control and assessing for tactics of [control and power].”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast
“We’ve had attorneys that…have no understanding of domestic violence whatsoever…and it actually ends up traumatizing [the survivor] more.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“I have gotten a lot of feedback from clients that they’re [legal aid] not very trauma-informed, and especially the people doing the intake…can be really not very nice to people.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“Not to be crude…well, what type of attorney is going to walk through the door, because it may be someone who isn’t equipped to speak [to the survivor]. There’s an element of trauma-informed care that I think most attorneys aren’t necessarily versed in.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“I wish there was more access to advocates to not just like and call this resource, because that doesn’t seem very useful to just refer on and refer on, they just tell the story again, and again, it’s not trauma-informed.”
– Advocate from the West
Survivors are put at further risk of retraumatization when they interact with court system actors that are not implementing trauma-informed procedures when hearing a DV case.
“The domestic violence system and programs in general…are not trauma-informed, as a survivor has to retell their story, I believe, eight or nine times…and that’s re-traumatizing each time.”
– Advocate from the West
“[Police officers] are supposed to do a [lethality] assessment every time that they are called out on a domestic violence call. They don’t always do that. Which means that they don’t get in touch with the people that they need to get in touch with.”
– Organization Leader from the South
“The court itself in general has a complete disregard for safety risk and lethality.”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast
DV advocates know that survivors who attempt to navigate the legal system without help will frequently be confused and overwhelmed.
There are many hoops for the survivors to jump through when navigating the civil legal system. It is also difficult for a survivor to narrow down the facts of their situation to present to a court. Advocates can assist survivors navigate the system.
“How often victims have to like jump through the hoops, ridiculous amount[s] of hoops, to be believed and to be validated and to have their situation taken seriously.”
– Advocate from the South
“Survivors go in and they want to tell you like their whole life story, and they want to, they want you to understand the context and the process of how everything happened. And the legal system isn’t set up for that.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
“It’s so complex [the court system] and victims…wanting to keep their children safe, you know, get frustrated.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
“There are system issues, right, there’s like, for example, some kind of a particular form that you have to submit, in a civil case some special form regarding divorce and custody, except that form doesn’t exist.”
– Organization Leader from the Northwest
Advocates are attempting to support survivors without counsel in a landscape where abusers often have counsel and are leveraging the legal system to perpetuate the abuse cycle.
By design, the legal system requires the survivor to face their abuser in person. There are also many cases where the abuser is able to secure legal representation, but the survivor is not. Or there are situations where the abuser brings frivolous lawsuits against the survivor as a means of power and control.
“I would say the primary issue that we are encountering right now, and this sounds so obvious, but that respondents in the case have become more violence, more combative.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
“Oftentimes, the abuser has money and means to hire private counsel, which is very intimidating for our clients.”
– Organization Leader from the South
“[Survivors] are very traumatized, and [do] not necessarily want to go into the courtroom and face a judge because they know that their perpetrator might be there.”
– Organization Leader from the South
“[Parties could] refram[e] their argument from a place [or] space that understands that these coercive behaviors have absolutely been wielded throughout the court process.”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast
Survivors often ask advocates to provide legal advice, despite advocates not being authorized to do so.
Most advocates indicated they are asked legal questions every day or almost every day. Survivors come to advocates expecting them to be able to answer their questions.
“I think it happens often. I think it happens all the time.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“[It happens] all the time. I mean, daily I would say I probably bet every time I talk to a victim.”
– Advocate from the South
“I would say it happens [survivors ask legal questions] in every, every type of matter that I’ve…come across.”
– Advocate from the West
“Survivors expect us to just give answers.”
– Advocate from the West
Advocates have to carefully walk the line of legal advice and legal information when trying to answer a civil legal question for a survivor, paying close attention to the scope of what they are allowed to help with.
Survivors already ask advocates legal questions, but because of current UPL restrictions, advocates are unable to give them more than information about their options. This presents challenges because many survivors are in crisis which impacts their decision-making abilities. Advocates’ descriptions of navigating the distinction between legal information and legal advice indicates that capping services at legal information often fails to meet survivors’ true legal needs.
“Clients may ask me a question, and I can’t answer it. I can give [the survivor] the resource, but I can’t get into [it without] proceeding with caution.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“The legal information being given out, it’s just basic information. That, you know, that’s not what the client needs. The client needs to know…what she can do or how she can do this, and like a mini law school class.”
– Advocate from the West
“I tense up making sure like, this isn’t legal advice before I answer it, because we’re just like we’ve really been talked to about that.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“This is not right [telling someone what they should do], because then I’m liable for whatever this person does.”
– Advocate from the West
“It also depends too, on what it is. So if it’s something that’s commonly something that I do, like protection orders and divorces, I’m usually fine with those.”
– Advocate from the West
The line between legal information and legal advice is blurry, causing advocates to vary in their reaction when a survivor asks a question that might elicit legal advice. Advocates range in their level of confidence when walking the line between legal advice and legal information.
The line between providing legal information and legal advice is blurry at best. There is no common definition of what constitutes legal advice and DV system actors sometimes take an “I’ll know it when I see it approach” to determining whether an action or statement constitutes providing legal advice.
“Everybody seems to have a different idea of where that line falls.”
– Organization Leader from the Midwest
“It’s just a very fine line. It’s such a fine line.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“It [the line between legal advice and information] feels very gray and muddy.”
– Advocate from the West
“Because it’s a really thin line [between legal information and advice].”
– Advocate from the Northwest
Some advocates walk right up to the line.
“No I can’t [give you advice]. But we can talk it out. And we can talk about your worries and what your hopes are and like, create a path to get there.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“It’s like one of those things where it’s like, you say, you want to do this, I will help you accomplish this.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“I always tell [survivors] that, you know, based on my experience…these are your options. And I’ll help you [with] whichever option you choose.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“It is incredibly difficult to not go that extra step into just doing what I want to do in answer to this question.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“If it’s something I know the answer to, I can answer it.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“I’ve worked at legal firms before, so I’m not completely oblivious as to like lawyers and maybe some things that you might need.”
– Advocate from the West
Other advocates stay as far away from providing legal advice as possible.
“Like I’m gonna not tell them anything other than go talk to an attorney, or a legal advocate, as I don’t know, any of the laws.”
– Advocate from the West
“But I feel overly cautious about making sure and like, my clients all mimic me now they’re like, you’re not an attorney. We know.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“I was trained to be very cautious.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“But I can’t speak from my knowledge, and I can’t speak from my confidence because there’s other factors.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
Advocates’ confidence depends on the legal issue and the question posed by the survivor.
“I think it depends. I think being a fairly new advocate that’s doing full time legal advocacy. It depends.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“It[] really depends on the survivor and the question.”
– Advocate from the West
“If there’s anything that I ever feel like is over my head, or is too much like I can turn to this contracted out attorney and she’s phenomenal. She’s great. So I could feel reassured that like, I don’t have the information [but] I have the means to get them that information.”
– Advocate from the South
“It really just depends on the question. I think for the most part, I’m personally equipped to deal with those types of questions. And if I don’t know, I’m never going to answer it.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“I would feel more out of my element, though, just because I haven’t been like fully certified in anything with the legal field.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
Tension exists for advocates when survivors ask them questions that they know the answer to, but are not permitted to answer because it would constitute providing legal advice, exacerbating the frustration that survivors feel when navigating the legal system.
When survivors ask questions that lend themselves to legal advice, advocates have to explain that they can’t answer these questions because they aren’t attorneys, and it can be tense for both parties.
“It is incredibly difficult to not go that extra step into just doing what I want to do in answer to this question.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“It can get uncomfortable sometimes.”
– Advocate from the Northeast
“It’s not clear and it’s not…not right.”
– Advocate from the West
Advocates frequently have to set boundaries or limits with survivors about what their role entails and explain that they cannot provide legal advice.
Advocates have to explain their role to survivors, stressing that they are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice.
“I think really focusing on telling people, I’m not an attorney, I cannot give you legal advice, I can give you legal information, and I can talk about my past experiences working with previous survivors. And even though I may tell you about a past experience, it’s not your experience, I can’t guarantee you an outcome and even an attorney may [or] may not be able to guarantee you an outcome.”
– Advocate from the South
“If I know the answer…I will stress to them that, okay, I am not an attorney.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“I’m not ever trying to be a lawyer…that’s not something I really have any desire to do.”
– Advocate from the South
When advocates are unable to provide legal advice to survivors, they feel like they are letting survivors down.
Advocates want to help survivors as much as possible. Advocates feel like they could be doing more in many cases if they were permitted to provide legal advice.
“But I know that when I’m meeting with people, it’s a huge disappointment already, that you can’t really give them suggestions or advice. But if, when I have the information, and I share that, it’s just [this] weight off of them. And they…are very vocal about that.”
– Advocate from the West
“I’ve had some clients say that why should I…have to call this other person? And do this extra work to get this answer? Why can’t you just tell me?”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“We have some, really, I don’t want to say needy in a negative way, but really needy people who we’re the only ones they have.”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast
“That [legal advice] is what survivors need. And that’s what they want. And so even though they understand and the survivors I work with, they’ll be like, I know, you can’t provide legal advice, but can you tell me what to do.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
Some advocates are worried about leading a survivor down the wrong path by providing legal advice because they would then feel responsible for the survivor’s actions.
Several advocates indicated they were hesitant to give survivors legal advice because they did not want to do anything that could damage the survivor’s case. Advocates want to help survivors, not hurt them by providing incorrect legal advice.
“I don’t want to give you [the survivor] the wrong answers and potentially mess up any case that you’re gonna have in the future.”
– Advocate from the Midwest
“It never made me nervous to say like, I’m sorry, I can’t do that, like I don’t have that knowledge because I felt like that would have actually hurt their case more if I tried to help them.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“You may be trying to like help, but it can do more damage than good.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“One of my biggest takeaways was that you can actually hurt [clients] if you’re trying to provide legal advice.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“Usually what I tell them is like the last thing I want to do is give you information that’s wrong and have you make a decision because I gave you wrong advice.”
– Advocate from the West
Advocates navigate additional barriers when survivors are not represented; courts treat self-represented survivors differently than represented survivors.
Advocates do their best to bridge this gap for survivors and reach attorneys to help survivors when possible.
“[Court actors] just don’t give the same level of respect to someone who’s not represented…which is extra distressing, when they’re already in a down position if the other party has an attorney.”
– Organization Leader from the Northwest
“I even see it in the court the diffference between how is someone treated by a judge when they don’t have an attorney versus when they do have an attorney.”
– Organization Leader from the Northwest
“If there is a possibility for them to see a lawyer, I tried to book that.”
– Advocate from the Northwest
“I’ve been able to support attorneys from behind the scenes reframing their language in their petitions.”
– Organization Leader from the Northeast