Legal readiness for domestic violence victims preparing to go to court is paramount, as it plays a pivotal role in safeguarding their safety and getting justice. The legal process involves a multifaceted approach, and being prepared emotionally, gathering evidence, and understanding the legal process, and th potential challenges that come with it is an essential first step in legal readiness. In this episode of Her Empowered Divorce, your Host, Beverly Price, talks to Joni Jones and Lawrence Jones, experts in domestic violence, on both the emotional and legal issues. Together, they discuss the legal readiness of domestic violence victims for court to equip you with the tools you need to navigate the courtroom effectively, protect your rights and credibility, and ultimately break free from the cycle of abuse. 

Divorce doesn’t have to be a death sentence. With the right support and guidance, you can move through the process with knowledge, skills, and confidence. If you’d like to schedule a complimentary private consultation, reach out to Beverly at: https://beverly-price.as.me/Consultation. 

Visit https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/her-empowered-divorce/id1635143315 to access the entire archive of Her Empowered Divorce episodes, and while you’re there, please subscribe, rate, and review our show! 

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Domestic violence can be both a civil and criminal proceeding. However, each state has its statutes and laws, and it’s essential to learn the domestic violence statutes in your state.
• Legal readiness starts with the awareness of the court's requirements and expectations in a case, which can help you better prepare for the process. 
• Are there pro bono resources for domestic violence victims? State laws and resources differ from state to state, but you can get pro bono attorneys, recoupment, and organizations’ legal aid in most states. 
• Your conduct in court, no matter which part you are in, matters. You are always being watched, even when not on the stand. Be respectful and polite, and don’t undermine your own credibility.
• Can I win a case without witnesses? A lot of domestic violence occurs with no witnesses, but this doesn’t mean you can’t win the case. You can win the case by being more credible. The court has every right to decide which side they believe based on the evidence.

NOTABLE QUOTES:

• The court system in domestic violence can be overwhelming if you are not familiar with it; being a little cognizant of what the laws are is an important first step in the legal process. (Lawrence) 
• If you are going to bring any witnesses to court for any particular reason, it’s important to Subpoena them so that they are required to be there, and you are not just hoping they will be there and they don’t show up. (Lawrence) 
• Domestic violence courts are pretty busy, and you can’t constantly be stopping a proceeding to accommodate the documentation you have on your cell phone, so it’s very important to have copies of whatever you’re coming in with available in your cell phone so it can be used as evidence. (Lawrence) 
• Knowing some basic evidence laws, even if you are not an attorney, is helpful because even if you are representing yourself, you are still bound by the same laws as someone being represented. (Lawrence) 
• Having an attorney or an advocate can be helpful rather than trying to do it all by yourself because if you have never done it before, the risk of messing it up along the way becomes greater. (Lawrence) 
• If you are going to court with an advocate, it’s important to know how the judge makes decisions and alert the court in advance of any issues such as autism because you can be misinterpreted on your character based on your presentation because that is all the judge knows. (Joni) 

ABOUT OUR GUEST: 

Lawrence R. Jones

Lawrence R. Jones retired from the New Jersey Judiciary in 2017 after serving the public as a Superior Court Judge. During his time on the Bench, he served as the President of the New Jersey Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and authored over 60 opinions on novel issues of law, including significant published and unpublished opinions on issues of domestic violence and dating violence (IPV). Judge Jones also served as a member of the faculty of New Jersey’s Judicial College and was the creator and co-presenter of the Judiciary’s 2016 program, “Harassment: Drawing the Line between Domestic Disagreements and Domestic Violence.

In 2020, Professor Jones was one of the featured speakers at the New Jersey State Bar Association’s presentation on “Economic Abuse as a Form of Domestic Violence.” During National Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2022, he appeared as a guest speaker on the television program New Mexico in Focus, presenting on issues concerning domestic abuse and legal/social aspects of Congress’s reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA 2022). In 2022, the New Mexico Supreme Court appointed Jones as the Vice Chair of the statewide Commission on Alternative Dispute Resolution. 

Jones is also a certified economic mediator in New Jersey in matters with active restraining orders in place. He presently practices mediation and dispute resolution and now resides with his wife in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he will be teaching at the University of New Mexico this fall.

JONI JONES 

JONI JONES is a registered nurse, board certified in psychiatric and mental health nursing, who retired from the New Jersey Board of Nursing. In 2013, Joni was the recipient of the Elizabeth Kellogg’s Award for Excellence in 5 Nursing. Joni presents extensively on various social issues, including mental health, domestic violence, and children with autism spectrum disorder. 

Joni is one of the original founders of Parents of Autistic Children (POAC) and has presented before the Autism Society of America and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts on autism-related issues. She is also a former certified developmental disabilities nurse. From 2002-to 2009, Joni worked with multiple major league baseball teams to create the first-ever "Autism Awareness Day" games hosted by the New York Yankees (the Florida Marlins, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the (then) Montreal Expos. She was previously a certified instructor in Mental Health First Aid, has authored numerous published articles on mental health-related issues, and received a New Jersey certification in crisis intervention.

Joni is the co-author of “10 Basic Principles of Cultural Competency (BCPP): A Starting Point for New Mediators”, which was presented at the 2021 Academy of Professional Mediators program on Mediation and Autism Spectrum Disorder and at the 2021 New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators’ inaugural forum on cultural competency. She is also the author of a new children’s book, “The Invisible Hurt,” which addresses the relationship between a young child and a parent with mental health challenges. Joni recently relocated with her family to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has been appointed to U.S. Senator Ben Ray Lujan’s Mental Health Consortium.

FOLLOW OUR GUEST: 

Lawrence Jones and Joni Jones

Link to Guests’ recent TV appearance on New Mexico in Focus, discussing issues relating to domestic violence (October 6, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=wUQY7Gqv3FA

Point C video on YouTube: htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4eNVDtGdTs

Link to the Point C Website: www.pointcdivorce.com

ABOUT YOUR HOST:

Beverly Price is the empowering divorce coach who guides women on their journey before, during, and after divorce to eliminate pain, overwhelm, sadness, and anger and create more knowledge, skill, and peace that she experienced herself. In her 30 years of divorce coaching experience she has help thousands of women move through divorce, fully prepared with skills that enhance the results of their divorce process.

Remember, divorce doesn’t have to be a death sentence. With the right support and guidance, you can move through the process with knowledge, skills, and confidence. If you’d like to schedule a complimentary private consultation, reach out to Beverly at: 

https://Beverly-Price.as.me/ConsultationCall

CONTACT YOUR HOST:

Website: http://www.herempowereddivorce.com/

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Facebook Group: Her Empowered Divorce Tribe: https://www.facebook.com/groups/herempowereddivorcetribe

Visit https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/her-empowered-divorce/id1635143315 to access the entire archive of Her Empowered Divorce episodes, and while you’re there, please subscribe, rate, and review our show! 

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@herempowereddivorce1/

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Hi, beautiful. I'm so glad you're here today. As a domestic violence survivor, my passion is all around domestic violence awareness and recovery. October is domestic violence awareness month, and I'd like to share with you information to educate you. I've even formed something called the Divorce Coalition, where

many, many divorce professionals have come together to use our influence to raise awareness and educate people as domestic violence. You can find The Coalition at divorcecoalition.com and on Instagram at divorce coalition page. Well today my guest is Joni and Larry Jones and they are experts in domestic violence, both from an emotional and legal perspective.

This episode is part two of their series. The previous episode we just recorded is part one where we talk about the emotional readiness for domestic violence victims for court. Today we're gonna talk about the legal readiness for victims for court.

Hi, Joanie. Hi, Larry. Thank you so much for being with us. I'm so excited for this episode.

Morning, Beverly. Thanks for having us. And we greatly appreciate the invitation to participate in your wonderful program. Yes, thank you.

You're so welcome. To start off with, can you tell the audience just a little bit about yourself and your interest in domestic violence?

Sure. I used to live, we used to live in New Jersey. We now live in New Mexico. We moved to New Mexico a couple of years ago. But while in New Jersey, I was a Superior Court judge in the family part. I was a domestic violence judge amongst my other duties and heard countless and decided countless domestic violence cases. And before I was a judge, I was an attorney and represented many survivors of domestic violence in domestic violence court myself. And then after retiring from the bench in 2017,

I became a teacher, a professor at Monmouth University, and we developed and taught a course on domestic violence law and social policy for, you know, undergrads and students who are interested potentially in going into that field or just for their own personal knowledge. And also while I was on the bench, I was on what's called the Faculty of Judicial College, which is the educating judges on an ongoing basis, specifically on family court issues such as domestic violence.

have a lot of real life dealings with domestic violence and cases which appear in court. And here in New Mexico, we've become recently involved, Joni and I with the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence and just did a training program for persons who are representing themselves in court in domestic violence court, some of the legal and emotional issues like we're talking about in this two part series on your podcast. And my name is Joni Jones. I'm a registered nurse.

board certified in mental health psychiatric nursing, along with being certified as an anger management specialist. And I worked almost 10 years on a mental health unit. I worked with many people that were either a product of domestic violence as a child, or they were going through divorces that resulted from domestic violence, and they were having continued aftermaths of that.

And on our unit, you had to meet the criteria of suicidal ideation. So I worked with very serious people with that. But I really had a connection because I had gotten myself involved in multiple domestic violence situations and relationships. And I was a product of a child, as a child with domestic violence. And combining the two just has given me such a passion and being a true survivor that I can come out and I could help other people get through.

their situations also. We also Beverly want to thank you for focusing on the important issue of domestic violence. We know that October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but it's a critical issue all 12 months of the year, obviously. So your program is going to help educate your listeners and others as a resource in the fight against domestic violence. So thank you for that.

Absolutely. And my hope is that these episodes not only help victims, but also help those who aren't victims stop condoning domestic violence through their silence.

So Larry, you're going to be more the expert on the legal side, having been a judge. Can you give an overview of kind of the process, the legal process in regard to domestic violence? And is it a civil issue or a criminal issue?

Sure.

Okay, well first of all we live in a country where there are 50 separate states and each state has their own set of statutes and rules so no two states are exactly the same when it comes to really any issue. Some of the state's laws on issues mirror each other a lot but there's no one uniform set of state rules that are exactly the same in all 50 states. So whatever state someone happens to be in, if they believe they are a victim or

target of domestic violence, it's really important to learn the law in the state. The first place I would look is the domestic violence statute or statute, sometimes there's more than one, in your particular state. Because if you're getting, for example, advice from someone from New Mexico and the laws are very different in Kentucky or Alaska or anywhere else, you have to know the rules as they exist in your state, procedurally as well as substantively.

You're not representing yourself and you have a lawyer. Logically, if you go to a lawyer or an attorney in your state who has experience in domestic violence, domestic abuse in that state, they should be able to help you navigate through that process. If you're representing yourself, as many victims of domestic violence do, it's still helpful at least to go to an advocacy organization in your state, even if they're not lawyers necessarily, but they would logically have some experience in domestic violence and could help you navigate through the process. Because the court system...

in domestic violence court and really in any branch of the court can be overwhelming for people if they're not familiar with it. It's almost like learning a new language. Once you become familiar with it, you can become very good at it and even teach other people potentially. Many people who are survivors of domestic violence become domestic violence professionals in one form or another. They're people, they're lawyers who, you know, focus on domestic violence and they've been through domestic violence themselves as a survivor in the past. It's sometimes motivating.

Mm-hmm.

But being able to at least become a little cognizant and aware of what the laws are is certainly an important first step in the process, whether you're learning that on your own or through professionals who can assist you in that process.

Wow. And is it civil or criminal?

It's a little of both. See, and it gets a little complicated in certain areas of the law, but in general, to try to simplify it, it is possible that a domestic violence incident gives rise to both a civil and a criminal proceeding at the same time. So for example, let's say in New Mexico.

Okay.

Somebody, you know, a dating partner or a spouse or somebody in your family who's covered under the Domestic Violence Act, you know, punches you because they're upset, they're angry for whatever reason. Well, that's an assault, obviously. Punch in the face would be an assault. So in most jurisdictions, that would be, you know, an act of domestic violence. So what happens? What would happen is, logically, someone, the one who is victimized by that punch could file for a restraining order.

Now the restraining order itself, the domestic violence complaint may be filed in family court. Like when I was a judge in New Jersey, I sat in family court. I was not a criminal court judge. I was a family court judge. That was civil. So the issue when I sat on the bench in family court was whether to issue a restraining order, but that was not a criminal court. Now at the same time, the police could file a complaint against the abuser for criminal assault.

Gotcha.

And that would take place in the criminal courts in New Jersey. So you'd have two cases going on at the same time that arise from one single incident, from the same incident. And it's very important to focus on the differences between a civil case and a criminal case. Without turning this into a mini law school session right here, some of the differences are, number one, you're in two different courts. Number two, the burdens of proof.

are very different in civil court usually than criminal court. In criminal court, the standard of proof is beyond the reasonable doubt, whereas in civil court it tends to be a much lower standard preponderance of the evidence. In the civil court, it is the name of the case, the parties in the case would be generally the survivor of domestic violence, the plaintiff versus the defendant. So if it's John and Mary Smith and John hit Mary, the case would be Mary Smith versus John Smith. It's a civil case.

In the criminal case, it would be the state of New Jersey or New Mexico or California versus John Smith. So there's a prosecutor involved or a district attorney involved. And so they kind of have more control over the case. And of course, the result of the case, in the civil case, there could be a restraining order and other financial consequences. In the criminal case, the result is somebody convicted of a criminal offense.

So the statutes for domestic violence very often define domestic violence by looking at certain criminal acts, but the standard is very different. And so therefore you could actually have two different results from the same incident in the civil case and in the criminal case. The most classic example of that is the O.J. Simpson case, where O.J. Simpson, you know, was accused of murdering his wife in an act of domestic violence, his ex-wife.

And it resulted, for those who recall, in two separate hearings, a criminal case where he was found not guilty by a jury, because they could not prove guilty on a reasonable doubt in that case, the prosecutor, and then a civil case where the jury found that O.J. Simpson was liable for domestic violence, and it was like a $30 million judgment against him. Also, keep in mind that if you're in a criminal case, in a criminal system, it could result in a jury trial.

Whereas in a civil case, it may be simply a bench trial, meaning a judge decides it. You could also have a bench trial in criminal, but in my experience, it tends to be more jury trials as far as that's concerned. So you could have two different actions at the same time. You could actually have a third action taking place also in the civil court if the survivor of domestic violence brings a civil suit for damages for the assault.

against the perpetrator. That could be a separate case as well that's not necessarily heard immediately in domestic violence court or it could be an offshoot of the domestic violence case and then you get a separate personal injury case just as if anyone came up to you and hit you it could result in compensatory damages or other forms of relief. So I hope that explains it a little bit.

Absolutely, absolutely. Now, what would be, from a victim's perspective, what might be some of the common misunderstandings about the legal process?

Well, as with anything, the more information you have, whether you're represented or not, usually the better off you'll be, at least in terms of the preparation for the proceeding. So, a lot of times, survivors of domestic violence, in my experience, their appearance in court, because they went and got a restraining order or applied for a restraining order, it's sometimes their very first appearance in court on anything. You know, not even a traffic ticket sometimes. Now, there are other people who've been to court a thousand times on other issues

By going to court, they've picked up some of the procedural mechanisms that take place in cases. But I can tell you from my experience on the bench that a lot of people who came in unrepresented in good faith seeking a restraining order, sometimes they conducted the proceeding in a way that it could have been better for themselves. So for example, the lack of preparation. When I say lack of preparation, I mean, it's not a good thing.

In domestic violence, it tends to be when you file a domestic violence complaint, the hearing takes place very quickly, usually by statute. So in New Jersey, for example, if you file a domestic violence complaint, the hearing is supposed to take place within 10 days. The social reason for that rule is because things shouldn't sit out there unsettled. If somebody needs a restraining order, there should be a final hearing as soon as possible. Sometimes it would take more than 10 days because there's an adjournment request or someone's got a lawyer and the lawyer is committed before another judge on something. So it can happen.

Right.

But I would see people come into court, and it wasn't their fault because they weren't professional attorneys and they weren't familiar with the process and they were just trying to get help. But nonetheless, they could have been more prepared had they been aware of certain requirements or expectancies in the court. So by way of example, sometimes people would come into court and they didn't bring in, and they have witnesses, but the witnesses aren't there. And the reason the witnesses aren't there is because either they weren't subpoenaed

Or perhaps the witness maybe it's a friend or someone who says, oh yeah, I'll be there. And then they just decided not to show up. So if you're going to bring witnesses for any particular reason, it's important to do what? To subpoena them so that they're required to be there. You're not just hoping they're going to be there. And then they decide they don't want to get involved for one reason or another. So if you're expecting a witness, the witness doesn't show up. The judge might or might not grant your request for an adjournment. And if they don't, now you don't have that witness there to help your case. So that's number one.

Hmm

Number two, particularly in current times, people tend to come into court with, sometimes they've got all kinds of evidence, they have text or emails or photographs or videos of certain things, and it's all on their cell phone. They come walking into court with their cell phone. And in this day and age, your cell phone is like a file cabinet in your pocket, but in court it's very, very difficult to get evidence that's on your cell phone.

into the record. If you think about it, let's say you have, let's say there's a video of, you know, that somebody had filmed of an abuser either berating or worse, you know, hitting or punching a survivor, right? So you want to get that video in. Now, is it on your tape? It's on your cell phone. There's that, just that one copy. The other side's entitled to see it too. How does the court then take that into evidence and make it part of the proceeding? Because

You're supposed to make a record of everything in case something goes up on appeal if it's just on your phone. And while they could download it and they could do all kinds of things, usually in domestic violence court, at least in my experience, the courts are pretty busy and they may have 10 or 20 cases in one day and they can't constantly be stopping and proceeding to accommodate the documentation that you may have on your cell phone. So it's very important to at least consider having available whatever you're coming in with on your cell phone also have, you know,

perhaps three copies available of everything. So there's a copy for the other side, a copy for the court, and then your copy, right? So then it could be marked and put into evidence. I'm not just talking about videos, photographs, texts, emails, any documentation, photographs of bruises, things of that nature. So it's important to come in with that, I would suggest, so that the court doesn't have to be stopping the proceeding 100 times. Remember, there's two sides in every case, right? At least two sides.

tends to be. So if there's a no contact order in place, a temporary restraining order, and you've got everything on your cell phone and you're not allowed to have contact with the other side, so that cell phone, every time you have something on your cell phone, it's got to be handed to the sheriff's officer, then handed to the other side, then handed to the judge, and you may have a whole bunch of people in the back of the court waiting their turn to have their case heard, and so it can make it very difficult sometimes if you do that. In terms of...

Gotcha.

Tape recordings, and certain states have rules that, you know, they call it a one-party state and two-party state. So some states, if you're secretly tape recording someone, that's permissible as long as you are a party to that tape. And in other states, it's impermissible. So it's important to know, because a lot of times you have tape recordings of conversations between the abuser and the party, what the laws are in that state. If the laws require, or the laws in your state prohibit you from secretly tape recording someone without their permission, even if you're a party to that conversation.

You want to know that in advance because you don't want to get in trouble for doing something that's illegal, that type of a thing.

So where can they find those laws? Where can they find out?

Well, the one good thing about our internet age is a lot of things are much more readily available to people than they were back in the old days where you'd have to go to a library or law library and look up the statutes. But even so, as we talked about on part one of your podcast, you got to be real careful if you feel that you're in a domestically abusive situation. For example, if you're living with the abuser.

You don't want to go online in your house to look up things about domestic violence because it's extremely common for abusers to tap into that, to check your phone, to check your computer. It's not that hard to put taps on someone's computer to see what the search history has been. And so you want to be real careful. You don't want to make things even more dangerous for yourself. So you may want to go to somewhere where it's not on your network, a library, whatever it may be, or go down to an advocacy organization in your state.

Right.

If you're unfamiliar with the law, but you think you're a victim of domestic violence, you think you're in that type of situation, it can be very helpful to consult in confidence with any of the, you know, usually each state has, you know, at least one, sometimes more nonprofit domestic violence advocacy organizations. A lot of them are funded by federal funds under VAWA and other types of funding, and try to get some information about where you can get more information for trial readiness. If you have an attorney,

the attorney would generally, you would think, would help you prepare it. But if you're representing yourself, you still need to know these things because if your witnesses don't show up or your evidence is all on the cell phone and the court doesn't have the, you know, is not willing to stop the proceeding a thousand times to process that, you know, you're kind of working against yourself a little bit, I would suggest. Knowing some basic evidence rules, even if you're not an attorney, is helpful because even if you're going and representing yourself, you're still bound by the same rules.

as someone who is represented. So there are various rules and sometimes the rules of evidence and civil procedure in each state, the book could be a thousand pages long. But in my experience, a couple of the general rules where people get tripped up when they're representing themselves in domestic violence court is number one, the hearsay rule. The hearsay rule means with certain limited exceptions, you generally can't testify to what someone else said that's not in court to testify themselves, other than perhaps the other party. So for example,

If you have a friend who witnessed an act of domestic violence by the abuser hitting you, you can't come into court and say, my friend said that she saw this or he saw this. And the reason why that's inadmissible is because it's considered unfair to the process because if that person's not there, there could be no follow-up questions by the other side or by the court testing their credibility. Where were you? When were you? What specifically did you see? There's no cross-examination.

Sometimes people come in with a written letter from their friend or even a certification, a notarized affidavit, it's still hearsay. You still need them there. So you really can't testify in general as to what someone else said. Now like I said, there are some exceptions to those rules, but you really can't count on the exceptions as being the rule. They're exceptions because they are exceptions. You need to have the witnesses pretty much present as far as that's concerned. Yeah, Joni.

some people go into court and they know their truth and they feel like just because they're telling the truth that it's going to be accepted as truth. And it doesn't work that way. And the other thing is a lot of people, their frame of reference may be watching a television show about court and they think that that's how it operates and it doesn't. So if they do have the opportunity,

Exactly.

Right.

If the court allows them to go in and watch somebody else's court proceeding and see how that operates, sometimes that becomes very helpful. Because a lot of times also what people do is they'll start talking to families and friends. And, you know, that may help in a situation of maybe bringing down an anxiety level, you know, temporarily. But the advisement that's given.

can actually be fueled to the fire because they're getting emotionally engaged themselves. They're getting revengeful and they don't know how the court proceedings operate or how a judge comes to a decision. And that could actually hurt them instead of support them in the court setting. Right, what Joni's saying is really good information.

Mm-hmm.

relative to the concept of perhaps going down and watching the mechanisms of some other domestic violence cases as long as the court permits you to be in the courtroom. Sometimes a courtroom is closed for different reasons, if it involves a minor, things like that. But in other courts, even though it's a domestic violence proceeding, it's open to the public. So going in and watching how these cases work and seeing some of the objections and seeing some of the procedures can be helpful.

in advancing your own self-education on how these things work. Another thing I used to see all the time, people would come into court, they'd have their witnesses there, and they're going to call a witness, their friend, and then the witness takes a stand and the plaintiff, the one bringing the request for the domestic violence complaint, they've got the witness on a stand and then they don't know what to do next.

Like they don't ask any questions. They just expect the witness to start talking. And that's not the way court generally works. You have to, when you call a witness, you got to ask, they call it direct examination and there's cross examination. There's a way this works. And the court can't be, the judge can't be your attorney. You know, the judge has to be neutral to both sides. So while judges can have, yes. So it's not that the judge is being, you know,

Right.

I think that's such an important point. Yeah.

It's taking sides. In fact, they can't take sides. Sometimes people feel after a domestic violence case or any kind of case, well, the judge didn't do this, the judge didn't do that. And sometimes the judge didn't do certain things that they should have done and it could be appealable. But other times, it's not that the judge did something wrong necessarily, it's that the rules were not being followed by someone who was self-represented or even sometimes when they had counsel, the rules aren't being represented. So if you're calling a witness, it's helpful to kind of know in advance what your questions are gonna be.

to get involved with while you're dealing with the emotional aspects of going through with a restraining order against someone you may have previously trusted and perhaps even loved. That's why having an attorney or at least an advocate can be very helpful rather than trying to do it all yourself. Some people say, I can do this all myself and maybe you can, but if you've never done it before, the risk of kind of messing it up along the way becomes greater.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, and some judges handle these situations very differently than others. You're not going to get, you could have presented the same exact case before two different judges and get two completely different results as well as two different approaches on how that judge chooses to handle a situation. So the more you kind of know about what's expected of you as a party in a case, even if you're self-represented, either by watching other cases or by consulting with an attorney or advocate or both.

the better your chances are of being at least more prepared for what's expected of you in the process. You see?

For those women, in many cases with domestic violence, they're also suffering from financial abuse or financial control by the partner. So the abused victim may not have access to finances to pay an attorney. Are there pro bono resources for domestic violence victims, attorneys, and where might they find them?

Yes.

Right.

Yeah, again, each state is kind of its own little world to some degree when you're talking about state laws and state resources. So for example, in New Jersey, when I sat as a judge, there were many people who could not afford an attorney. So there were different possible options. You mentioned pro bono, it's possible. You can get a pro bono attorney to basically represent you at no cost. There are also organizations, for example, if they're...

you know, equivalent of legal aid or that type of thing, where you might be able to qualify if you apply for legal assistance, although in a civil case as opposed to a criminal case, there could be a different set of rules, financial dependency or financial, you know, challenges, etc. And then also, you know, certain states, New Jersey was one of them, they have in their statute, a law which said that

if in fact someone is a victim of domestic violence, the court can order counsel fees to be paid by the abuser. Now each state handles that differently and the issue in New Jersey, which was a little, you know, sometimes created some ambiguity is do you have to wait till there's a finding of domestic violence to get the, to have a reimbursement basically of attorney's fees or can a court order money to be paid up front?

Oh.

Mm-hmm.

by the abuser before there's any finding as an advance basically so the person can get an attorney because some attorneys are willing to take cases even if they're not getting money up front representing a domestic violence victim if the law allows them to seek counsel fees at the end. Some are willing to do that just like attorneys sometimes will take a personal injury case if they're not paid up front, you know, and that they call a contingency, really not allowed to have contingencies in family court in many states, but including New Jersey. But they're...

the statute does allow for a court to consider awarding fees. Also, if you're going through a divorce at the same time as a domestic violence takes place, which sometimes happens, because in the divorce, there are similar statutes which allow a shifting of attorney's fees. Perhaps that could be granted in the context of the divorce as well when a restraining order issue comes up. Not every state to my understanding, and I'm certainly not an expert in all 50 states,

and I haven't even been in all 50 states, but some states to my understanding don't have that type of provision in there. Meaning that unless the person borrows funds from somebody and seeks a reimbursement at the end of the case or whatever it may be, they may have more difficulty than persons in other states seeking financial contribution either at the beginning or end of the case so that they can get counsel. I will tell you that at least in my experiences in New Jersey, there were various organizations where

Gotcha.

People were willing to, you know, were willing to supply a pro bono counsel. And even if they didn't have pro bono counsel, at the very least having an advocate, a domestic violence advocate, the difference between an attorney and an advocate, an advocate really can't practice law or can't represent you or speak for you in court, but they can certainly help you through the process. So if it's a choice, if you can't afford an attorney, at the very least consider whether or not an advocate would be permissible to at least sit with you in the court.

So you can consult with them. And generally, what you would do is you would ask the court first if that's permissible. You would always ask that you don't just want to have someone showing up there at council table who's not an attorney. But if it's explained to the court that perhaps the judge will in their discretion allow that to take place if it's permissible in that jurisdiction. So there are options. Yeah. And Beverly, I'd like to add that if you're going in to court with an advocate, it's important to know

Wow.

how the judge makes decisions. Because you have one person, the survivor, that's telling her story, and then you have the perpetrator that's telling his story. And the judge has to make a decision on both presentations because that's all the judge knows. And there's gonna be certain criteria that's going to be looked at.

as responses, control, character, all these things to determine the credibility. And we don't know which way that judge is going to rule because how many times do you, people come out and they say, well, I'm telling my truth and the judge is gonna know, and then that doesn't happen. So one of the things that I like to have people, they have the opportunity is to alert

Yeah.

the court in advance if there are any things that can be interpreted, misinterpreted. So if somebody calms themselves by tapping or rocking or speaking loud when they get passionate, these are things that may be important so that somebody is not misinterpreted in their character.

Gotcha.

you know, by the judge, especially, you know, if somebody has, for example, high functioning autism, ASD-1, formerly known as Asperger's syndrome, and they're going in there, some of the common, you know, characteristics, like maybe somebody doesn't have great eye contact, or maybe somebody's so traumatized that they can't even look at the perpetrator, you know, in court.

Yeah, I think that's common.

and they're not making that eye contact. That could be misinterpreted of somebody being evasive, not telling the truth, or somebody's doing something, calming like tapping a pen or their leg. It could be misunderstood as disruptive and it's okay to ask for a break.

if somebody needs something because again, this is a very emotional time. But educating is very important. And I also always say, bring something calming. Sometimes it might just be a picture of somebody and it might be somebody significant in your life. Maybe it's a parent that has passed on, or it might be an object.

It might be the type of clothing that you wear that is more comfortable for you. You may feel better if you take off your shoes, but if you're alerting that all these things are something that is making you comfortable in a very stressful situation, so you can think and you can focus, those things become very important. And then the other thing that I'd like to share as a strategy is that if you have a writing utensil and a piece of paper, it's called effective listening.

And there's gonna be a lot of targeting from listening to your perpetrator twist things or blame you. And instead of having that, that emotional response, which is very impulsive, obviously, especially when it's a trigger to trauma, having a focus where you can just jot something down is twofold. Number one, that you won't be perseverating on your thoughts. So you won't...

forget what to say in response to what they say, because they're saying five other things while you're still focused on that one thing that's very important to you. If you jot it down, you know, and it's your turn to respond, instead of like interrupted or blurting out, you know, you'll have your thought, and you might have three other ones that you have jotted down, that if you were just perseverating, you wouldn't miss those things. But the other thing is the act of writing it down.

Right.

takes your eyes off of the perpetrator and it gives you something functional to do that does by writing it down, it has a lot of therapeutic values and it stops those emotional responses. It's an outlet that can be misinterpreted by the judge. Right, and to follow up points on that, first of all, your conduct in court.

Wow.

no matter which party you are or really in any case, it does matter. And obviously you always want to be respectful in court and polite in court. Some judges get upset when they sense that someone is being disrespectful. But also, not to tell war stories, but there were cases I heard about from other judges, for example, where someone came in and they were crying and they went on the stand and they were all upset and everything. And then there was, for example, a break.

And then during the break, all of a sudden that person is being observed, that same person, of laughing and rolling their eyes and having, you know, it's completely different from how they presented on the stand as if it was all, you know, kind of premeditated or an act. And so you got to be, you know, you're always being watched in court. You don't know who's watching you. It might not be while you're on the stand, but you know, when that type of thing happens, it can undermine your own credibility. So you always, you know,

Right.

laughing and joking is really not appropriate in court unless there's something, unless the case is about something funny. And domestic violence is rarely funny, never funny. And then also, a lot of people get confused. They say, well, I don't want to go to court or I'm afraid to go to court because it's just my word versus their word. Let's say, and a lot of times domestic violence, I mean, let's face it, we were talking about witnesses and stuff like that. But the truth of the matter is...

A lot of domestic violence by its very nature takes place with no witnesses. At night, in a house, it's very private, it's domestic. There are some acts of domestic violence that take place in a public place, outside a concert or in a restaurant or in a bar, but the majority of them are really home-based and almost intentionally without witnesses around. An abuser might not want to be seen beating somebody or being abused. That doesn't mean you can't win the case.

right.

And as we talked about before, especially on the civil side and even on the criminal side, if it's one person's word versus another, and let's say you have a case where there's no corroborating evidence. It's just the survivor says, he hit me, and then the abuser says, I did not. The court has every right to decide which side they believe by a preponderance of the evidence. So in many assault trials, many people

Right.

Perhaps remember the Mike Tyson trial where that was a criminal case. He had a date with someone and he allegedly assaulted her and then the jury found even though it was just one person's word versus another that he was guilty beyond a reasonable down. He went to jail, prison for three years. So on the civil side, when the burden of proof is much lower, you can still prove your case just by being more credible through your own verbal testimony. How do you be credible? Well, you come in a little organized.

You know what you're going to say in advance because if you come in and you're all nervous and you could be very nervous for very legitimate reasons, but if you're not getting your story out there, it's not helping you. So sometimes maybe writing something, you don't want to come in and read off a piece of paper necessarily, but to have your notes, your key points that you want to point out, written out so that you can, if you do draw a blank because of nerves or whatever, you can at least fall back on it. You are allowed

Right.

to bring in notes and refresh your recollection, as long as it's your own testimony, as long as you're not just reading verbatim from a statement, because that's not really testimony. That's just, you know, you're reading a statement. And some judges may even allow that, by the way, but some may not. But having a few notes here and there is appropriate. In fact, if you have a lawyer, the lawyer will have a whole pad of notes. They don't just walk in cold. So if you're not a lawyer, if you're your own lawyer, you still have every right to do that. So you make sure you hit on all the points you wanna bring out.

Exactly.

And practicing it in front of a mirror or otherwise is smart, because you get a little more familiar that way. And of course, when you walk into a court, it's a different environment than practicing in the mirror in your house. But it's still some element of rehearsal. It's almost like actors or athletes, they have practices and practice all week long before they take the field. Why? So that when they get on the field, they're at their top of their game, so to speak. And so that's very important for lawyers or people who are not.

lawyers representing themselves and being organized, having the specific evidence that you want to come out. And I would just suggest to anyone doing a domestic violence case, you can kind of break it down into at least three different sections, which is number one, what is the immediate predicate act, the main act that drove you to seek a restraining order at that time? If your domain act was from 10 years ago and you didn't do anything about it for 10 years, that's not as compelling in certain cases as if it happened yesterday.

Well, Larry...

So first of all, you want to focus on what's the, they call it the predicate act. And the second thing you want to focus in on is what's the history, the dynamic between the parties? Because you could have, if someone punches you in the face, you don't really need a history to say that that's domestic violence. But if someone, for example, says, I'm going to strangle you, that verbal statement standing alone might mean different things in different circumstances. Someone might say it just as a joke, even a bad joke.

and they just meant it in a joking way. But if the person has a history of constantly saying that or abusing the person in the past, the court needs to know that so that they can consider that statement, that non-physical domestic violence, but a verbal threat in the context against a backdrop of what the relationship was really like. So it's important to bring out the key elements of the relationship. That doesn't mean every issue that took place between the parties has to be repeated. There wouldn't even be enough time for that.

But the most critical things, the things which you want, the most critical experiences of demonstrating domestic violence, you want to give that to the court so that they can consider the predicate act against that backdrop. You see what I'm saying? If you don't put that in there and you leave the court, they will, nobody asked me, you missed an opportunity to educate the court on what the real dynamic of this relationship has been. And then thirdly, it's important to focus on how it has impacted you.

how it is, you know, in other words, you know, some people, a threat is made, but they just walk on by and it doesn't bother them because they're not taking it seriously. And other times people are like, they can't sleep, they can't, you know, they're afraid for their life, they're afraid to go to their job, they don't want to go anywhere, that type of thing. You have to let the judge know that because the judge is not a mind reader. But if you're educating your job, whether you're representing yourself or whether you're an attorney, representing a survivor of domestic violence is to educate the court, to persuade the court that number one,

that this is a legitimate domestic violence complaint, and number two, why it's important for the court to issue the restraining order. And that job falls on the party or the party's attorney to persuade the judge as far as that's concerned. The judge isn't just gonna come up with that on their own. And Beverly, I just wanted to, I wanted to just share with your listeners a strategy because when the survivor is going into court, usually at that time,

What?

Larry and Joanie.

you know, they're fed up. And, you know, now they want to have their justice for everything that's done to them. And there could be their own anger responses. And there can be very purposeful in the courtroom since the perpetrator knows, you know, your triggers, like the survivor's triggers, that they may try to just like hit on that. And I just want to briefly mention heartfelt forgiveness.

because this is a strategy that can be very helpful in showing your calmness and your presentation and not being baited in the courtroom. So most of us know forgiveness in the traditional sense that one may minimize an act that happened against them and they may have been hurt or have some anger from that, from a person's or a friend's actions. And they forgive them to the point where they're going to

continue to have a relationship with them. But heartfelt forgiveness is quite different. You are forgiving, but there's no minimizing. What the person did will never be right. And you not necessarily want to continue a relationship with them. But there is a conscious focus to be free of the emotional burdens that have resulted from their actions.

So I'll give an example. If we have somebody that their family member was murdered and now the murderer is in court and you see the family come in during their sentencing and the family looks at them and they say, I forgive you. It's not because what they did was acceptable. It's not that they ever wanna build a relationship with them, it is to finally.

Exactly.

release themselves from the torment and the torture that is stopping them from going on with their lives and the trauma so that now, I mean, that day after day, that torture has been holding them back. But now they are simply releasing themselves from the burden so they can move on and thrive once again as a family and find happiness.

So whatever anger or hurt that there is, just push that pause button and remember what heartfelt forgiveness is, what it means and what it does, and then take that gateway towards that emotional freedom because it's a very conscious act that can make all the difference in the world. So the things we're discussing.

Thank you.

Well, we're about out of time. We're about out of time today. So I wanna thank you so much for being my guests today. This was so informative. It was just incredible. Thank you.

Thank you for having us, Beverly. And I just want to quickly indicate that we were giving some examples of things. This is not meant to be all inclusive or the only things that you would bring up in court, or that this would necessarily apply in every single case. These are just some tips that you may want to consider. And like we talked about earlier in the podcast, it's usually pretty helpful to consult with an attorney or at least an advocate before trying these things out yourself.

Well, all of Larry and Joni's information as well as mine will be available in the show notes. This and all our episodes can be found at herempoweredivorce.com on the podcast page or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you prefer the video version, you can go to our YouTube channel, Her Empowered Divorce. Join me for our next episode where we'll be diving deeper.

during October's Domestic Violence Awareness Month of information that can help you on this journey. Remember that we also have part one to this, which is the emotional readiness of victims for court, in addition to today's episode of Legal Readiness for Court. I have a free ebook, 24% of divorces are the result of domestic violence.

you can find why a divorce coach at her empowered divorce dot com slash divorce coach until next time stay safe and stay empowered.