公益效应:母亲经受双重斗争
“I was going through hell,” says Maya,* who had spent six years living with her son’s father in a tumultuous relationship. It was a cycle of domestic violence—a cycle that was not broken until 2008.
Around New Year’s Day 2008, the two were on a street in downtown Washington, D.C. They began arguing and Maya’s then-boyfriend shoved her to the ground in front of a witness. She knew she had to leave. After separating, Maya began legal proceedings to gain custody of their young son.
“他威胁说要把我儿子从我身边夺走,” she recalls, a very real possibility considering he was a prominent person in D.C.美国的执法团体. “我意识到我自己无法做到这一点. I need somebody.”
但就像许多华盛顿大都市区的居民一样, she was struggling financially and could not afford to hire an attorney. 家庭法院自助中心在D.C. 高等法院把玛雅交给了D.C. 靠谱的滚球平台事务所公益项目的宣传 & Justice Clinic.
Poverty: A Growing Problem
In 1993 the Advocacy & Justice Clinic—then called the Law Firm Clinic—opened just as demand for pro bono legal services was growing in the city. At the time, most of the larger Washington law firms were not involved in individual pro bono poverty law cases. 为了满足社会的需要，D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program created an extensive plan to engage these firms and show them that, with support, their attorneys could be powerful advocates for people living in poverty.
自17年前成立以来，倡导 & 司法诊所发展迅速, 与近40家公司和联邦政府机构合作. 在过去的几年里，倡导 & 司法诊所的使命变得更加重要.C. residents struggle with unprecedented levels of unemployment and poverty. The D.C. 就业服务部在2010年9月报告说, 该市的总体失业率为9%.8%，略高于9%的全国平均水平.6 percent. In neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River, the unemployment rate is near an astounding 30 percent. 贫困水平更是惊人——五分之一.C. residents lives below the poverty line, according to numbers released by the D.C. 财政政策研究所，2010年4月.
With a soaring number of poor residents in need of legal services, the clinic provided representation to 30 percent more clients during its last fiscal year (July 2009 to June 2010), 强调需要更多的公益靠谱的滚球平台.
A Long Road
During one of the 21 sessions held each year at the clinic, Heidi A. 福利靠谱的滚球平台事务所的靠谱的滚球平台索伦森说 & Lardner LLP靠谱的滚球平台事务所的靠谱的滚球平台正在阅读检察官预先筛选的文件.C. Bar Pro Bono Program. “I looked at Maya’s file and said, ‘This is the case I want to take,’” Sorensen says. 在玛雅与诊所初次接触的一周内, 她和索伦森约好在福利的办公室见面.
“Foley & Lardner has developed this incredible level of family law expertise,” says Mark Herzog, D .副主任.C. Bar Pro Bono Program. “当公司加入倡导组织时 & Justice Clinic in 1996, it had very little experience representing pro bono clients with contested custody matters. 但是需求是巨大的，而且还在继续. 由合伙人梅琳达? F. Levitt, is that, yes, they can be messy—families tend to be—but that’s why it’s so important to have lawyers involved.”
After the first meeting, Sorensen thought she knew where the case was going. “At the time, I thought this would be relatively simple to settle. We’ve got two parents who have been involved in the child’s life,” she recalls. “即使是家庭暴力, we should be able to come up with something that would work for this family.” She was wrong.
Sorensen and Maya met with Maya’s ex-boyfriend and his attorney a month later to discuss a settlement. They reached an agreement where Maya would have their son 60 percent of the time. 就在她前男友出门五分钟后, 玛雅的手机接到了他的电话. “你知道，我不会同意的，”他告诉她.
“We had to start gearing up for an evidentiary hearing,” Sorensen says. The next year-and-a-half was filled with status hearings and settlement discussions. Around the summer of 2009, 双方达成了共同监护的协议, 但路障仍在继续. Her ex-boyfriend would not comply with a requirement to provide financial documentation to determine child support. He also hid income from a rental property he owned in an attempt to avoid higher support payments.
玛雅和索伦森在漫长的过程中结下了深厚的感情. 在处理监护权的案子时, Maya had to testify about the domestic violence she faced at her ex-boyfriend’s termination hearing from his law enforcement job. In the back sat Sorensen, who was present simply to provide moral support. “She supported me even though she didn’t need to be there because that was another case,” Maya says. “She was there for me.”
Following his termination, 玛雅的前男友一直难以相处, unwilling to cooperate to update child support when he found another job. He also routinely picked up his son late from school and was an absentee father. “我尽力为儿子做到最好. 我们决定分享监护权，但没有成功，”玛雅说. “我儿子在情感上经历了很多事情.“她的儿子正在经历重大的适应问题.
The last straw came when Maya’s ex-boyfriend refused to pick up their son from school the day before Thanksgiving in 2009. “When the school called, he told them, ‘Oh, no, it’s not my day,事实上，他总是在星期三休息,” Sorensen recalls. “当这种情况发生时，我们可以上法庭. . . . We had already been explaining to the judge all the problems that had been occurring with the shared-custody arrangement we had agreed to.”
The judge granted Maya temporary full custody until the actual hearing in six months. Sorensen and Maya, with the help of Foley attorneys Jackie Acosta and Joyce E. Gresko, continued building the case, talking on the phone, and meeting at Maya’s house.
What seemed like a fairly cut-and-dried case nearly two years earlier had proven to be long and trying, with Sorensen devoting more hours than a typical divorce with huge property assets. 但我付出的时间是值得的:2010年6月, the judge awarded Maya full legal and physical custody of her son.
“They did a great job. I feel like I won. 我恢复了内心的平静，”玛雅说. “There’s a child happy living with his mom, and there’s a mom that’s happy with her child.”
*Name changed
By Thai Phi Le
摘自《华盛顿靠谱的滚球平台》，2011年1月
Reach D.C. 酒吧工作人员作家Thai Phi Le at [email protected].
