The New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse is pleased to host a seminar presented by Professor Leigh Goodmark (visiting from the USA).

Feminists fought hard for recognition that domestic violence was a crime and helped to conceive and build the civil and criminal justice response that now dominates the worldwide discourse on addressing domestic violence. But the decision to rely so heavily on the legal system as the primary systemic response to domestic violence in the United States has had serious unintended consequences for the men and women that come into contact with that system. The legal system's response can essentialise people subjected to abuse, utilise overly restrictive definitions of domestic violence, inappropriately rely on separation to protect people subjected to abuse and restrict the autonomy of people subjected to abuse through the use of mandatory policies. This talk will discuss those problems and imagine a reconfigured legal response to domestic violence.

 Leigh Goodmark is a Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Frances King Carey School of Law. Professor Goodmark directs the Gender Violence Clinic, a clinic providing direct representation in matters involving intimate partner abuse, sexual assault, trafficking, and other cases involving gender violence. Professor Goodmark’s scholarship focuses on domestic violence; her book, A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System, was released in 2012 by New York University Press and named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of 2012.  Her work on domestic violence has appeared in numerous journals and law reviews, including Violence Against Women, the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and the Yale Journal on Law and Feminism. From 2003 to 2014, Professor Goodmark was on the faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she served as Director of Clinical Education and Co-director of the Center on Applied Feminism. From 2000 to 2003, Professor Goodmark was the Director of the Children and Domestic Violence Project at the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. Before joining the Center on Children and the Law, Professor Goodmark represented battered women and children in the District of Columbia in custody, visitation, child support, restraining order, and other civil matters. Professor Goodmark is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School.

Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment

Please RSVP by email to Nicola Paton, n.paton@auckland.ac.nz