Legal Services for Victims with Disabilities Project
Victims with Disabilities
All victims of crime face barriers accessing and understanding the criminal justice system. These challenges are often magnified for victims with disabilities, a population victimized at alarmingly high rates. A key piece of dismantling these barriers is a concerted effort to achieve equitable access to justice for persons with disabilities who are victimized by crime. This is the call to action which brought together NCVLI, its programmatic partner Disability Rights Oregon (DRO), and its evaluation partner RTI International (RTI) to launch the Legal Services for Victims with Disabilities Project with funding from the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
Legal Advice for Victims Project Overview
The Legal Services for Victims Project aims to increase the number of attorneys with expertise at the intersection of victims’ rights and disability law who are ready to provide competent rights assertion and enforcement legal advocacy at no cost to persons with disabilities who are victimized by crime.
To achieve this vision, we are:
- creating an online, interactive Disability & Victims’ Rights Attorney Toolkit;
- deploying intensive, in-person, skill-based trainings;
- pairing trained attorneys willing to serve as pro or low bono counsel with victims in need; and
- providing ongoing legal technical assistance to practitioners.
The Project is launching in Oregon, but with the support of RTI, lessons learned will be captured to ensure scalability to other jurisdictions.
“People with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to be victims of crime, and yet are underrepresented in the criminal system. Supporting a survivor with a disability through the criminal system is incredibly rewarding and a powerful way to fight for justice.”
Steering Committee
Recognizing that centering the voices of those with lived experience is foundational to effective victim services, we are convening a steering committee that includes persons with disabilities who have navigated the criminal justice system as well as lawyers with expertise. Meet our Steering Committee.
Wendie Abramson
LMSW, Chief Quality Officer.
Jabeen Adawi
Director, Family Empowerment and Legal Access Clinic, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law.
Jan Campbell
Director of Disability Awareness Resource Team
Nikki Dolan
Survivor of Domestic and Sexual Violence
Reanna Hensley
Disability Advocate
Lael (Lay-ol) Hill
Executive Director
Kate Knowlton
Supervising Attorney
Disability & Victims’ Rights Attorney Toolkit
Having access to practice tools is critical effective representation. That is why NCVLI and DRO are creating an online Toolkit. This Toolkit will have resources to aid attorneys representing these victims in criminal courts as they assert and seek enforcement of their rights. To ensure this Toolkit complements, rather than duplicates, resources that already exist nationally, NCVLI and DRO are conducting a national environmental scan for other practice resources critical for attorneys working on victims’ rights enforcement for persons with disabilities. If you know of existing resources that may be helpful to lawyers interested in representing victims of crime who are persons with disabilities who are seeking to assert their rights during criminal justice processes, please let us know by submitting the Resources Relating to Crime Victims with Disabilities online form!
Request Technical Assistance
In response to a request for technical assistance from a victims’ rights attorney, NCVLI conducted research on case law addressing challenges to victim competency. The competency of a witness to testify is an issue that frequently presents when the victim is a child or when the victim has a disability. Notably, competency to testify as a witness in a criminal case is often presumed by law. Because mental age, physical age, and physical or mental disabilities often do not prevent a person from understanding the nature of an oath, perceiving the events at issue in their testimony, and conveying information (with the help of accommodations, in some cases) to the court or to the jury, courts nationally have affirmed trial court findings of competency to testify in cases involving very young children and people with physical and/or mental disabilities, even in cases where a person’s ability to communicate may be limited.
Get Involved
NCVLI actively works to pair volunteer attorneys with crime victims with disabilities so that they can assert and seek enforcement of their rights during criminal investigation and prosecution. If you are an attorney who is interested in volunteering you can review current volunteer opportunities on the Pro Bono Portal of NCVLI’s National Alliance of Victims’ Rights Attorneys & Advocates (NAVRA.org) or contact us at navra@lclark.edu.
Disclosure for website: This website is funded through a grant from the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse this website (including,
without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).
This project is funded under 15POVC-23-GK-02770-NONF, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this project are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.