Ethics & Limited Representation Agreements

Ashley Vaughn is the owner of the Dumas & Vaughn law firm in Portland. She has almost exclusively represented survivors of child sexual abuse, adult sexual assault and harassment, and domestic violence since she began practicing law in 2012. She has advocated for child sexual abuse survivors in federal and state courts across the country, including handling appeals to multiple state supreme courts. She does pro bono work for the Victims’ Rights Law Center and is an active member of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, in which she drafts several amicus briefs a year. In 2019, OTLA awarded her and several other attorneys the Arthur H. Bryant Public Justice Award for their work in advocating for sexual harassment victims in the Oregon Legislature.

Meg Garvin, MA, JD, MsT, is the Executive Director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute (NCVLI) and a Clinical Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School. Professor Garvin is recognized as a leading expert on victims’ rights. She has testified before Congress, state legislatures and the Judicial Proceedings Panel on Sexual Assault in the Military. In her expert capacity she serves on the Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces, the Victims Advisory Group of the United States Sentencing Commission, and is a Member of the Council on Criminal Justice.  She previously served on the Victim Services Subcommittee, of the Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Crime Panel of the United States Department of Defense, as co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section Victims Committee, co-chair of the Oregon Attorney General’s Crime Victims’ Rights Task Force and as a member of the Legislative & Public Policy Committee of the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her work, including in 2012 Crime Victims First-Stewart Family Outstanding Community Service Award; in 2015 the John W. Gillis Leadership Award from National Parents of Murdered Children; in 2020, the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section’s Frank Carrington Crime Victim Attorney Award, and in 2021, the Hardy Myers Victim Advocacy Award from the Oregon Crime Victims Law Center. Prior to joining NCVLI, Professor Garvin practiced law in Minneapolis, Minnesota and clerked for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound, her Master of Arts degree in communication studies from the University of Iowa, her JD from the University of Minnesota, and her Masters in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University. Meg joined NCVLI in January 2003.