Deborah Epstein
Co-Director, Professor of Law

Professor Epstein has directed the Domestic Violence Clinic since 1993, and has spent more than 20 years working as an advocate for victims of family abuse. She co-chaired the design and implementation of the D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Court, which has fundamentally restructured the way civil and criminal family abuse cases are handled. Specialized judges preside over all family law, civil protection order, and criminal cases involving domestic abuse; a multi-agency approach is employed to decrease the incidence of family violence and to improve litigants’ access to crucial legal, medical, and social services. Until 2000, Professor Epstein directed the court’s new Domestic Violence Intake Center, a “one-stop shopping” center where victims can obtain assistance and advocacy in their civil and criminal court cases as well as crisis intervention counseling and support.

Professor Epstein’s publications in this area include: LISTENING TO BATTERED WOMEN: A SURVIVOR-CENTERED APPROACH TO ADVOCACY, MENTAL HEALTH, AND JUSTICE (APA Press, 2008); Intimate Partner Violence in the Civil and Criminal Justice Systems, in STRESS IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM (Fall 2012);  The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project: A Quasi-Experimental Test of a Collaborative Model for Cases of Intimate Partner Violence, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (2009); Refocusing on Women: A New Direction for Policy and Research on Intimate Partner Violence, 20 J.  INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE 479 (2005); Transforming Aggressive Prosecution Policies: Policies: Prioritizing Victims’ Long-Term Safety in the Prosecution of Domestic Violence Cases, 11 AM. J. GENDER, SOC. POLC’Y & LAW 465 (2003); Procedural Justice: Tempering the State’s Response to Domestic Violence, 43 WM. & MARY  L.REV. 1843 (2002); and Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence Cases: Rethinking the Roles of Prosecutors, Judges, and the Court System, 11 Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 3 (1999).

Professor Epstein has served as a member of the D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, the D.C. Mayor’s Commission on Violence Against Women, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Training Needs of Health Professionals to Respond to Family Violence, and the D.C. Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team, and a Board Member of the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Rachel Camp
Co-Director, Professor from Practice

Rachel Camp is a Co-Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic and a Professor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center. She joined Georgetown’s faculty in 2011 and became a co-director of the Domestic Violence Clinic (DVC) in 2013. Professor Camp has devoted her career to advocating on behalf of vulnerable and marginalized populations. She has represented, and has supervised law students representing, hundreds of survivors of intimate partner violence in civil protection order and family law cases during her time at Georgetown and while a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the University of Baltimore School of Law. In addition to direct legal representation, Professor Camp has supervised law students on a variety of community education and systemic legal reform projects aimed at increasing access to justice for survivors. Professor Camp’s co-authored article on integrating community legal education into clinical programs was published in the Clinical Law Review in 2012. Between 2000-2008, Professor Camp served as an Assistant Attorney General with the Oregon Department of Justice. While there, she served as counsel for a variety of state agencies, including the Department of Human Services in matters involving child abuse and neglect. Prior to her employment at the Oregon Department of Justice, Professor Camp was an attorney at the Maryland Disability Law Center representing patients at a maximum-security state psychiatric hospital in civil and administrative matters. Professor Camp currently serves on the Board of Directors of the D.C. Affordable Law Firm and Girls on the Run of Central Maryland. In addition to other law review articles and publications, in Coercing Pregnancy, 21 WM. & MARY J. WOMEN & L. 275 (2015), Professor Camp examined the intersection between intimate partner violence (IPV), reproductive coercion, and pregnancy. In her most recent article, Pursuing Accountability for Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence: The Peril (an Utility?) of Shame, 98 BOSTON UNIV. L. REV. 1677 (2018), Professor Camp explores how formal and informal methods of shaming perpetrators of IPV lead to counterproductive outcomes for reducing violence in intimate relationships and increased risk of harm for survivors. In addition to her work in the DVC, Professor Camp directs the LL.M. program for the D.C. Affordable Law Firm, a program that allows recent law graduates to provide civil legal representation to D.C. residents who fall between 200-400% above the federal poverty rate and who otherwise may be unable to obtain legal representation.

Jabeen Adawi
Teaching Fellow

Before her appointment as the Clinical Teaching Fellow in Georgetown’s Domestic Violence Clinic, Jabeen Adawi served as the Victim Legal Network of DC Project Coordinator at the Network for Victim Recovery of DC (NVRDC). There she coordinated ten DC legal service providers to create an enhanced referral network serving victims of crime with any legal needs stemming from their victimization. Prior to joining NVRDC, she had worked for three years as a staff attorney at the Sexual Assault Legal Institute of the Maryland Coalition against Sexual Assault, where her responsibilities included providing civil legal services to survivors of sexual assault. Jabeen is a 2010 graduate of the American University, Washington College of Law. At American, she participated in the International Human Rights Law Clinic as a student attorney, focusing on immigration and refugee law. Jabeen also received her BS in Applied Physics from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2006. Jabeen is a native Urdu speaker and is proficient in Hindi.

Bonnie Carlson
Teaching Fellow

Prior to becoming the Domestic Violence Clinical Teaching Fellow, Bonnie Carlson was a Training and Technical Assistance Staff Attorney with the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence. At the Commission, Bonnie wrote training curricula and publications for attorneys practicing domestic violence law around the country. Prior to this position, she was a family law staff attorney for the Alexandria office of Legal Services of Northern Virginia (LSNV) for four years representing victims of domestic violence. She started at LSNV on a year-long fellowship from the George Washington University Law School, where she graduated in May 2012. Upon her graduation, Bonnie was awarded the National Association of Women Lawyers Outstanding Law Graduate Award for her work with domestic violence victims as well as her academic success. She was an active member of the Alexandria Bar Association and was honored with the Don F. Mela Award for her service to the community in 2015. She taught Legal Research and Writing to first-year law students at the George Washington University Law School for three years. Ms. Carlson grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies and Women’s Studies from the University of Virginia.

Anna Harty
Office Manager

Anna Harty is the office manager for both the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic and the Domestic Violence Clinic, where she manages the day-to-day operations of both. She graduated from Xavier University with a B.A. in Gender & Diversity Studies. As a Brueggeman Fellow at Xavier, Anna developed an independent study examining the role of gender in conflict resolution and traveled to Uganda to engage in related research. After graduating, Anna did a year of service through Jesuit Volunteer Corps and coordinated legal services for asylum seekers at YMCA International Services in Houston, TX. Her work for the clinics includes referral and docket monitoring for the Domestic Violence Clinic, planning the annual fact-finding trips for the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, and providing financial and administrative support for both.