Page 30 - Delaware Lawyer - Spring 2023

FEATURE
Court’s Evolution
Commissioner Gretchen C. Gilchrist

Family
30 years of domestic violence jurisdiction
My colleague, Family Court Commissioner Gretchen Gilchrist, asked me to write the back page piece for this issue of Delaware Lawyer. She suggested that my experience would afford me some perspective on the evolution of Family Court’s approach to domestic violence. She also knows that I won’t say no to her.1
It is true that I have seen the prob- lem of domestic violence from a variety of vantage points. I was one of the first Family Court Com- missioners (I was appointed in Jan- uary 1994) and for a few years I heard most of the Protection From Abuse (PFA) cases in Kent and Sus- sex Counties. I then ran Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (CLASI), an agency funded by the federal Violence Against Women Act to ser ve sur vivors of domestic violence.2 I followed that job with 11 years as a staff attorney
for CLASI, representing hundreds of clients seeking PFA orders. During my CLASI tenure, I worked with for- mal and informal groups of advocates and other interested persons to im- prove the delivery of services to sur- vivors of domestic violence. And for the last six-and-a-half years, I have served as a judge in the Family Court.
One lesson I have learned is that my perspective is affected by my job. My role as a Family Court Commis-
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28 DELAWARE LAWYER SPRING 2023