I have worked in the domestic violence field since 1979, primarily as an attorney for battered women obtaining restraining orders. I graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley in 1980, and passed the bar that year. I became inactive with the state bar a few years ago (1994?) because I stopped representing individual battered women, and became primarily a teacher, writer, and consultant.

I have taught Domestic Violence Law at Boalt since 1988, the first such course in the US. I published the first and only textbook on this topic, Domestic Violence Law, in 1996, through Austin and Winfield Publishers. The current version was published in 2001 by West Group. It is now used by many other law professors throughout the US.

I have written extensively in the field, including authoring or contributing to three national judicial curricula published by the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco (on civil court cases, criminal court cases, and custody cases). I have been a consultant to Ca. Judges Education and Research, the statewide judicial education program, for several years, writing a domestic violence curriculum for judges, and a domestic violence curriculum for court employees. I also wrote a criminal court judges's benchbook focused on California domestic violence law and practice, published and updated annually by CJER (Domestic Violence Cases in Criminal Court).

Ca. Women Lawyers Foundation published my Manual on Domestic Violence in 1997, which describes California law and procedure relating to domestic violence (civil and criminal)(co-authored with Susana Martinez). I updated this in 2001. I co-authored Working Together to End Domestic Violence in 1996 with Peter Jaffe, David Wolfe, and Jack Sandler, a general introduction for laypeople or professionals, which is published by Mancorp Publishing in Tampa, Florida. Additionally, I have written many articles, both scholarly and for practitioners.

I have worked on legislative reform with the Ca. Alliance Against Domestic Violence since 1983, writing and testifying on many domestic violence bills on the state level. I am an active member of the Policy and Research Committee of the Alliance. The bills I have worked on include custody, marital rape, restraining orders, law enforcement response, and other issues.

I have conducted many trainings and given many speeches and workshops in the domestic violence arena, including talks in Berlin, Germany, Huairou, China, Tromso, and Norway.

In the summer of 1998, I was sent by the Asia Foundation to Mongolia, at the request of the Mongolian Women Lawyers Association. My role was to provide technical assistance and consulting as they formulated their first domestic violence law. I am still in contact with them, providing feedback as they finalize the language of this comprehensive law.

I have testified in many domestic violence cases. One of these was a family law case, one was a Dept. of Social Services case, two were criminal defense cases (including a battered woman charged with killing her husband), and the rest (approximately 19 as of May, 2001) were for the prosecution. The success of this testimony has been remarkable. The time I spent on these cases ranged from 90 minutes (one of the prosecution cases) to several months (the homicide case).

Additionally, I have worked on many cases which did not go to trial. In several defense cases where I interviewed the defendant, read police reports, and wrote a report, the charges were dropped or a plea bargain was offered which was acceptable to the defendant. In all of these, the defendant had been abused by the victim, usually over a period of time.

I have also worked on several tort cases involving domestic violence, and was deposed in one of these. All of them settled before trial.

I am available in Northern California only, but can refer you to colleauges in other areas.

I look forward to working with you.