Three powerful ways judges & lawyers can stop violence

By Luke's Place | November 19, 2024

As we have been exploring on our blog this month in recognition of Woman Abuse Awareness month, everyone has a role to play when it comes to eliminating gender-based violence. It is only through collective action that we can begin to take meaningful steps to prevent this pervasive form of violence.

For us at Luke’s Place, we see the challenges survivors face when navigating legal systems every day. Many professionals who work within these systems do not understand the significant role they can play in violence prevention. We have outlined a few steps that lawyers, judges and other legal system professionals can take to address GBV. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but to provide a few ideas about how you can join us in our fight to eliminate GBV:

Understand your role in violence prevention for your clients and for the litigants who appear before you:

When it comes to individual cases, you, as a family law lawyer, can advocate for court orders and processes that help prevent women and children from ongoing exposure to violence and harm. You can make the court process less traumatic for survivors and serve as an important source of information and support at a critical point in time when their client may be at increased risk of violence.

As a family law judge, you have the power and responsibility to make orders that prevent the cycle of violence from continuing. You control the process and can work to ensure that the courtroom doesn’t become another arena for violence and abuse.

Commit to ongoing education and training:

Learning is a never-ending process. Regularly and consistently engaging in training and education on issues of IPV is critical for lawyers and judges to fulfill their roles properly. As a legal professional, you should commit to doing so as frequently as possible, regardless of any expectations placed on you by your governing body.

Part of this learning is about understanding what trauma-informed means in your work and building the practical skills needed to implement your learnings into your everyday practices.

Part of the learning is also about understanding the differential experience and impact of violence on specific communities of survivors. It’s essential to do this work from an intersectional lens that takes into consideration the social and cultural identities of your clients and litigants and the ways in which these identities give rise to overlapping forms of oppression. Finding educational opportunities that explore the experiences and barriers faced by different communities of survivors will lead to an increased capacity to provide culturally responsive and competent services to survivors of violence.

The Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Report specifically include a call for the federation of law associations to ensure lawyers are provided with cultural competence training that includes topics such as the history and legacy of residential schools, as well as Treaties and Aboriginal Rights among other important topics. If your particular law association isn’t offering these educational opportunities, remind them of the Calls to Action and encourage them to make this a priority.

You also have a role to play in making sure that the content of the training and education programs available to you is created through ongoing collaboration and consultation with survivors and community-based subject matter experts. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and raise concerns when voices of experts have not been considered.

Build relationships with local organizations who support survivors of GBV:

Through these relationships, you are not only increasing your awareness about available supports in your community, but you will be learning from experts to improve your own knowledge base when it comes to how to effectively support survivors of violence.

A great start is to build relationships with the organization in your community that provides family court support services.

Look out for Part 2 of this blog post where we share other ways in which lawyers, judges and other legal system stakeholders can work together to end GBV.