Lawyers in Abuse Cases Should Be Accountable

America Magazine, March 1, 2004

Greater public scrutiny of lawyers for child victims of sexual abuse may be needed to assure that litigation is not psychologically harmful to victims and does not bankrupt organizations that serve children, wrote David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. “Many professionals have a sense that for some survivors, civil litigation ends up exacerbating their trauma rather than alleviating it,” Finkelhor wrote in the November issue of Child Abuse and Neglect, a monthly magazine for child-care specialists published by the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. “How are the plaintiffs recruited? What kinds of informed consent procedures are undertaken with them? What are the traumatizing portions of the litigation process, and how are these stresses managed and mitigated?” the report asked. Finkelhor estimates that 200,000 children are sexually abused each year in the United States