ICADV’s Satellite Attorney Program coordinates legal assistance for survivors of domestic violence throughout Indiana. For more resources for survivors, advocates and attorneys, visit the Legal Resource Page.
ICADV provides critical legal support to domestic violence programs and partner agencies across the state. Our legal team delivers immediate technical assistance, triages urgent legal issues, and offers experienced legal advice and counsel. We collaborate with member programs and attorneys statewide to help survivors of domestic violence understand and access the legal remedies available to increase their safety and autonomy. The project provides legal crisis assistance and information to all survivors, including immigrant survivors.
At a policy level, ICADV advocates for legal reforms that benefit survivors and the organizations that support them—-removing barriers so survivors can rebuild stable lives.
Visit the Legal Resource Page to learn more about ICADV’s legal initiatives.
Civil legal representation is critically important for domestic violence victims. Legal advocates help protect victims’ rights, guide them through complex legal processes, and increase access to protective orders and other safety measures. Victims with legal representation have significantly better outcomes such as obtaining protective orders, securing child custody, and navigating divorce or housing issues. Access to counsel also helps reduce re-traumatization by preventing victims from facing their abusers directly in court and ensures fair treatment in civil matters typically needed for domestic violence relief.
We know that the provision of legal assistance has broader societal benefits too, such as reducing repeat violence, decreasing reliance on foster care and social services, and improving victims’ long-term stability, thus, ICADV’s Satellite Attorney Project was born in 2016 to provide these critical legal services.
Here is how the Satellite Attorney Project (SAP) works: ICADV contracts with attorneys from all geographical regions in Indiana to provide civil legal services to qualifying victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Cases are referred to ICADV by our statewide member programs which provide essential crisis and advocacy services to those survivors, promoting a holistic approach to survivor-focused cases. If a domestic violence program is working with a survivor with an emergency civil legal issue, the Satellite Attorney Project may be able to coordinate with a local or regional contract attorney who can assist in that emergent civil legal issue at no cost to the survivor.
For emergency legal assistance statewide, survivors must be working with their local domestic violence program.
The Satellite Attorney Project cannot take every case; we know the demand is far greater than our capacity. In response, we have developed monthly Pro Se Legal Clinics to assist survivors who need to represent themselves. Those clinic topics vary according to demand—whether it is a pro se divorce, an eviction expungement, or a criminal expungement screening, our goal is to educate and empower survivors to be able to represent themselves when they must. Accordingly, we provide Pro Se Forms and Resources through our domestic violence member programs that can be accessed when working with a self-representing survivor.
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