Domestic Violence and Consumer Law Working Group

The Domestic Violence and Consumer Law Working Group seeks to enhance civil legal services for survivors of intimate partner and family violence who experience economic abuse. The Working Group also strives to improve policy and practice as it relates to this area. Economic abuse often involves identity theft, the sabotage of employment, accrual of consumer debt, tax fraud, and damaged credit. In addition, the Working Group assists survivors with consumer debt and bad credit – whether caused by abusers or poverty – which create substantial barriers to accessing safe and sustainable housing and establishing self-sufficiency.

The Working Group’s activities include fact finding, advocacy, training, and the operation of limited-scope legal clinics. 

  • In September 2018, CAMBA Legal Services, Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice, and The Legal Aid Society issued a report, Denied!: How Economic Abuse Perpetuates Homelessness for Domestic Violence Survivors, that examined the need for expanded legal services for domestic violence survivors who experience economic abuse.
     
  • The DV CLARO Pilot Project brings legal services attorneys with dual expertise in consumer issues and working with survivors to shelters to provide limited-scope assistance and referral to full representation when necessary. Shelter partners include Sanctuary for Families and Safe Horizon.


Working Group Members include:

  • Brooklyn Volunteer Lawyers Project; CAMBA Legal Services, Inc.; Center for Survivor Agency and Justice; DC 37 / MELS; Feerick Center for Social Justice; Her Justice; Manhattan Legal Services; Mobilization for Justice; New York City Anti-Violence Project; New Destiny House; Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation; Pace Women’s Justice Center; Sanctuary for Families; Safe Horizon; Urban Justice Center; and Urban Resources Institute. 

Support for the Domestic Violence and Consumer Law Working Group

A historic gift by the New York Women Bar Association (NYWBA) Foundation to the Feerick Center for Social Justice supported the Center's work in connection with the Domestic Violence and Consumer Law Working Group from 2010 to 2016. The Center's staff express their gratitude to the NYWBA Foundation for its generous support.