Quick snapshot: Rachel Fox Weitz. Received a BA in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a JD from Emory University School of Law. In between, worked in Washington, DC on presidential campaigns, as a political media consultant (made TV and radio ads for campaigns) and as a public affairs consultant. Worked in the […]

Ms. A, who spoke very little English, visited the Safe Families Office in the Fulton County Courthouse after being beaten all over her body, day after day, by her husband. The beatings often occurred in front of her four children and were sometimes directed at them.

Check out photos from the Fifth Annual Guardian ad Litem Benefit at Warner Bates on August 18, 2016. Thanks to Beth Intro Photography for making us look so good!

20—Number of people abused by a partner in the U.S. each minute. 20,000—Daily average number of calls received by domestic violence hotlines. $8.3 billion—Estimated annual cost of domestic violence in the U.S. 35 percent—Estimated number of domestic violence cases reported.

Quick snapshot: Jim McGinnis. I graduated from Auburn in 1979 and Mercer Law School in 1982. My first job was as an Assistant D.A. in Cordele, Georgia, working for Gary Christy. I did my first jury trial within a month of starting work. I wound up in Atlanta practicing exclusively in the area of family […]

I am a father before all else, and how I view everything in the world is shaped by this. 

So in the days after men were murdered for the uniform they wore, following hard on men being murdered for the skin they wore, it was especially difficult to hear the pain of my daughters asking, “Dad, what can we do?”

Imagine that you are a low-income single parent, living in a rented trailer and coping with the severe health effects of a brain tumor.

If your landlord is evicting you but you have a strong defense or counterclaim, you’ll get your day in court, right?

WRONG – unless you properly raised that defense or counterclaim in your written answer.

For the last year, I’ve had the unique opportunity to take part in the domestic violence trainings for the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation. In each training, we would address the many barriers that survivors of domestic violence face in finding safety and stability. Throughout this process, I often felt a twinge knowing that our domestic […]

When I started as an intern at the AVLF/PADV Safe Families Office in the Fulton County Courthouse, I thought I knew it all. I went to an all-women’s high school, and I even graduated from Agnes Scott College, a women’s college. I organized a benefit for an international battered women’s shelter as my senior project, and I thought I was prepared for whatever came my way at the Safe Families Office. I was even prepared for the ever-present question, “Why does she stay?” But I was not prepared for how emotionally involved I would become in AVLF’s Safe and Stable Families Project.

Quick snapshot: Ashley Prebula Frazier Heintz. I went to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I received a B.A. in Political Science and minors in Social & Economic Justice and Spanish. I attended The University of Georgia School Law, and thereafter clerked for Judge Clay Land in the Middle District of Georgia. […]

AVLF is bringing its signature Saturday Lawyer Program into Fulton County’s highest-poverty neighborhoods.