Presented at the February 2024 AFCC-CA annual conference in San Francisco. Nancy K. D. Lemon has been a leading authority on domestic violence law for over three decades. A retired attorney, she provided expert testimony in many types of cases. She worked on many pieces of California legislation affecting survivors of domestic violence and their children. From 1988 to 2022, Ms. Lemon taught Domestic Violence Law and the Domestic Violence Field Placement at UC Berkeley’s […]
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The Drown award is given by the California Chapter of the AFCC to recognize outstanding services to children throughout a person’s career, or by an organization. This award is named after Joseph Drown, who donated generously to the AFCC California to support its educational programs. Prior recipients of the Drown Award include The Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law, Commissioner Marjorie Slabach, Jeanne T. Ames, Joan Kelly, Justice Donald B. King, and Judith Wallerstein. (Please […]
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You cannot trust what you see and hear: children deny; adult victims deny; and, above all, those who commit abusive acts deny. Courts recognize that parents who learn of abuse of their children by the other parent often act counterintuitively. (People v. McAlpin (1991) 53 Cal.3d 1289, 1302 (mothers not reporting known abuse).) A child’s recantation after disclosing sexual abuse is a common occurrence and too often taken as the truth of what happened. (See […]
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