Research demonstrates that people who have experienced trauma — specifically a past arrest, domestic violence, and/or sexual assault— experience a greater likelihood of having an employment problem, a family structure problem, and a debt problem, regardless of what point in their life they experienced this trauma. Trauma experiences and their impact on civil justice needs and access to legal problem solving help are often not part of the access to justice conversation. Further, interaction with the civil justice system can be a (re)traumatizing experience itself. This session will discuss the existing trauma justice gap research, the need for more, and what actional steps that legal practitioners can take to mitigate the risk of trauma exposure response and retraumatization in legal help settings with or without human help.
