Intake in Quarantine
By Alice Shooman, ESQ, Staff Attorney at Sarah’s Voice
Sarah’s Voice
Throughout the pandemic Sarah’s Voice continues to serve victims of domestic abuse with the Jewish community in need of legal assistance free of charge. In June 2020, Sarah’s Voice saw their intake volume increase 300% from the same time in 2019.
Sarah’s Voice is now offering email and text options for victims to safely reach out. They can be emailed at legalintake@shalomtaskforce.org or call/text (347) 592-2124. One will be individually connected to a trained victim-advocate. The advocate cannot provide legal advice but can answer basic questions, complete safety planning and schedule a safe time for you to speak with an attorney from the project.
Alice Shooman, Staff Attorney at Sarah’s Voice, shares reflections on her experience working from home during this pandemic:
As I hold the phone close to my ear and think what I need to tell her next, my mind wanders and I imagine what the caller looks like. Where is she? Is she in her kitchen? Is she hiding in a bedroom or bathroom with the door jammed shut? Is she listening for a car pulling up or a key in the lock signaling that it is no longer safe to talk? My days are filled with the stories of victim-survivors like my caller--individuals who are suffering at the hands of their partners, who should be their strongest support. Parents who fear for their childrens’ futures and how they will manage alone if they leave their abusers. Today, this is complicated by the fact that the courts have all but shut down due to the Coronavirus. When all my usual tools and remedies are unavailable, what should I tell her?
Normally, as an attorney for Sarah’s Voice, the legal services project for Shalom Task Force, I spend hours every week talking to community members about their abusive marriages and relationships. They are from every part of the Jewish world, but a large number come from communities where understanding religious life and practice is essential to understanding and helping them. I almost never meet these clients face to face and our interactions, often hours and hours of talking, occurs almost solely over the phone. Sometimes, I receive emails and occasionally I have back and forth conversations that way. Those emails often come in the middle of the night when their fears and concerns for the future terrify them. I try to provide calm, sound advice, and legal analysis. I always say that half this job is knowing the law and half this job is helping people to reason with common sense. More than any other legal practice, family law involves understanding people. Judges have tremendous discretion in making the decisions that change people’s lives and often litigants make impressions that negatively impact these decisions. I always tell people that they are being observed the moment they enter the courthouse. I know that when the parties leave the courtroom someone always tips the Judge off to things happening in the waiting room. Some days I wonder if I’m doing enough.
Today, I also wonder about how to balance my own life. Can they hear the background noise in my home? Can they imagine me on Fridays as I hold the phone with one arm and stir my pot of chicken soup with the other? Listening to our Intakes’ suffering reminds me to be grateful for important things in life like having food to put on the table. It reminds me how we must continue trying to help and to overcome the challenges of working during this crazy pandemic. One thing never changes. At home or in the office, they have the full attention of my heart.
