Summary: The Marshall Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Department of Justice.
The Marshall Wythe School of Law has received a $250,000 grant for its Domestic Violence Clinic from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, according to The Flat Hat News.
The grant is for two years and it will allow the clinic to expand its reach. Victims of domestic violence and sexual assault are served by the clinic in southeast Virginia.
Third-year law students who work at the clinic will receive experience handling sexual assault cases thanks to the grant.
To read more about the Marshall Wythe School of Law, click here.
The director of the law school’s clinics, Patricia Roberts, said, “We will be hiring a full-time attorney who will work as a fellow with Darryl Cunningham.”
The instructor of the Domestic Violence Clinic, Darryl Cunningham, said the following:
“Often when people are getting out of a bad relationship or have been abused, there are also housing issues, job issues, [and] credit issues. Abusers often will control all of the money — or, as an alternative, they will get credit cards out in the victim’s name, run up massive bills and then not pay those bills — so they have no credit, so they can’t get an apartment, they can’t get a car. They [also] have transportation issues, medical issues, and custody issues. So there’s a lot of legal and non-legal needs that they have, so what we’re hoping to get as many of those needs as possible met or find referrals for other attorneys or outside sources.”
Cunningham will be supplemented by a new attorney at the clinic who will help address the issues mentioned earlier. The clinic will also partner with organizations at the College of William and Mary to reach its goals.
To read more about the College of William and Mary, click here.
“The law school and its clinics are partnering with Legal Aid [Society for South Eastern Virginia] and Avalon, a local domestic violence shelter, and we will be providing expanded legal services to [southeastern Virginia]” Roberts said.
Partnerships will be created between the clinic and the College’s Initiative on Gender, Sexuality & the Law as well as the College’s Family Law Clinic.
Juanita Graham, the Director of Outreach Services at Avalon is responsible for sending victims to the clinic for legal help.
“Some of [issues we address are]: child support, protective orders, trying to get one person or another out of the house,” Graham said. “Some of the other non-legal issues are finances, finding housing, [and] those are some pretty big barriers we have to overcome.”
To read more about the Department of Justice, click here.
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[poll id=”269″]Image credit: William and Mary
