Helping Victims to Cope With Red Tape : Volunteers Guide Domestic-Violence Sufferers Through Mounds of Forms

In a small room in Family Court Services in downtown San Diego, a teen-age mother with a blackened eye explains to a volunteer legal adviser that her boyfriend recently beat and choked her after she complained he wasn’t doing anything with his life. She says he also threatened to take her baby.

She wants the court to order her boyfriend to stay away, a task made all the more difficult because she must fill out 17 pages of forms to be eligible for a temporary restraining order.

But a 3-month-old program is making the battered young woman’s chore far less demanding, court officials say.

She is getting free legal advice and assistance in filling out her forms at a Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic that opened Feb. 1, staffed by volunteers from the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, the Lawyers Club of San Diego and the YWCA Battered Women’s Services.

Volunteers Lending a Hand

Attorneys, paralegals and law students have volunteered at the clinic to help prevent more than a thousand battered and often indigent victims from getting tripped up in the multi-step process that precedes a restraining order.

“I’m a college grad, and I would have a hard time filling out those forms,” said Murray Bloom, director of Family Court Services. “Getting help from the court system requires a lot of work. When you’re bleeding and in distress, how can you do it?

“To ask (victims) to fill out these forms is almost to make them a secondary victim of the court system,” he said. “The clinic takes 90% of the burden off them. Without this clinic, I believe some people would go without the protection of the court.”

Clinic staffers, some of whom are paid by their companies to work there, refer victims to social agencies and shelters when necessary. Assistance is also available to illiterate victims and those who only speak Spanish.

About 80% of victims at the clinic are women, but men, especially those who are elderly, also are seen. Victims often arrive in tears; some have broken noses or blackened eyes. Others can barely walk.

“It’s a very much-needed service,” said Soyla Elliott, a paralegal with the Volunteer Lawyer Program and a clinic coordinator. “We have some clients who can’t sign their names.”

Clerks at the Family Counseling-Conciliation Court at 1551 6th Ave. inform those seeking a restraining order in domestic-violence cases about the clinic on the building’s second floor. The victims apply for “stay-away” orders to keep abusers 100 yards away, or “kick-out” orders to remove abusers who live in the victims’ homes.

Temporary Restraining Order

A clerk can issue a temporary restraining order if the forms are completed satisfactorily and if certain criteria--including that the victim has been abused within the last 15 days--are met. The order is valid until a hearing before a judge is held, from 5 to 10 days later.

A restraining order of up to three years can be issued by one of four Superior Court judges who handle domestic cases. They hear from about 40 applicants a day.

“It was always a problem that people weren’t prepared,” said Superior Court Judge William Howatt Jr. “The people coming through the clinic have a better understanding of what to do to prepare for their hearing. That makes it easier on the judges.

“Also, the restraining orders were being used as a substitute for a divorce. But the clinic has helped screen that out.”

Officials with the Volunteer Lawyer Program, which runs the project, believe the service is the only one of its kind in the state.

Though the clerk’s office does not charge rent for the 8--by-15-foot clinic, the Volunteer Lawyer Program spends about $2,500 a month for a full-time clinic coordinator, clerical support and a part-time attorney.

At the going rate of $125 an hour, a month’s service by one attorney is worth more than $17,000, according to Carl Poirot, executive director of the 900-member Volunteer Lawyer Program.

Before the clinic opened, applicants who could not afford legal help relied on already overburdened court clerks for help. To make matters worse, clerks and attorneys say, the number of applications for domestic restraining orders has increased as the region has grown. Court officials also believe a proliferation of drug use, particularly of methamphetamines, has led to more incidences of domestic violence.

Domestic-Violence Calls

Regional crime statistics show that the number of domestic-violence calls to police increased by 11% between 1987 and 1988. More than 2,000 of the county’s 15,570 calls in 1988 involved the use of a weapon, police said.

“Our clerks were burning out and requesting transfers,” said Charmaine Ames, assistant chief of family law and probate division.

Amid crying babies and restless children, lines at the clerks’ counter were often out the door.

“Sometimes applicants would see the same person at the counter five times or more before they got the paper work right,” said attorney Maria Arroyo-Tabin, a member of the Lawyers Club and the Volunteer Lawyer Program.

“Many people in that situation just threw up their hands and said, ‘The hell with this,’ ” said Poirot.

The YWCA Battered Women’s Services, the Volunteer Lawyer Program and Women’s Studies and Services in San Diego has offered small-scale programs to help the indigent apply for temporary restraining orders.

But today, volunteers at the clinic assist 15 to 35 clients a day, from 9-11 a.m. and 1-2:30 p.m. weekdays. About 140 legal advisers have signed up to work at the clinic.

Poirot said plans are under way to open similar clinics at the Vista and El Cajon courthouses.