How Can we Help Victims of Domestic Violence?

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and we will recognize it today with Lisa Smith, a professor on the law faculty at the Brooklyn Law School.

How can it be that world wide 1 in 3 women have been victims of domestic violence? What does that mean about our society? How can we safely help our loved ones who are living in a household where the power and control of women (most often) and children are a way of life? How can we support women to free themselves of this life-threatening situation? What legal procedures are in place to help end this problem which ultimately affects all of us?

Professor Lisa C. Smith is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College and Brooklyn Law School. At Brooklyn Law School, she is the Director of Externship Programs and has taught the Prosecutors Clinic, the Family Law Violence Project and Innovations in Criminal Justice. She currently teaches a Domestic Violence Prosecutors Clinic in which third year students prosecute misdemeanor domestic violence cases in the local criminal court under Professor Smith’s supervision.

Professor Smith is the Co-Chair of the AALS Clinical Section Externship Committee and is an appointee to the New York State Violence against Women DCJS Task Force.  Professor Smith was formerly the Executive Assistant District Attorney for Special Victims (Sex Crimes, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence) in the Office of the Kings County District Attorney.

Professor Smith has served as the Co-Chairperson of both the ABA Committee on Reentry & Collateral Consequences and the Academic Committee of the Criminal Justice Section and as a member of the New York City Bar Association Committee on Domestic Violence.   Professor Smith was instrumental in the creation of the Family Justice Center in Brooklyn, NY and has worked on numerous innovative projects in the field of child abuse and domestic violence.