Unedited transcript: Hey everyone, it's Rich Lombino, therapist and lawyer. Welcome and thanks for joining. In this podcast, I explored topics for maintaining good mental health, expanding your knowledge, developing insight and creating and sustaining behavior change with the goal of improving the quality of your personal and professional lives. Alright. Let's get started.
Today's topic is finding justice for survivors of sexual abuse. And my guest is John R. John, good to have you here. John Rich, thanks so much for making time to talk about this important topic. Rich Yes, how about you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? John Yeah, sure, I'm a partner at a law firm in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I studied philosophy in college. I served as a naval officer and then I pursued research in Latin America through the Fulbright Fellowship program. After working with survivors of exploitation both in the Middle East and in Latin America, I decided to focus my legal practice on working with survivors of trauma and exploitation. Rich OK, now you have a lot of experience in this area. What drew you to to work with this important population and what inspired you? John Yeah, it's a great question and I think a lot of it has to do with recognition of many of the privileges that I've had over the course of my life. I grew up in a stable family with two parents where my needs were provided for as well as you know, the opportunity to have some education paid for by my parents. Whether it was, you know, private school or assistance with college and recognizing those privileges I think has made me acutely aware of those who don't have those same privileges. Those who are left behind in so many ways. And I think early in my career as a naval officer, I began looking for those around me who were in just sort of situations where they couldn't get out, you know where they couldn't get ahead, and very quickly I began to see that folks who are working day in and day out but not paid for that work right there in conditions of you know, basically involuntary service. They're sort of a prime example of folks who can't get ahead no matter how hard they work and how hard they try, they're not going to be able to accomplish their goals and dreams because the system is stacked against them because they're sort of victims of coercion and deceit and trickery. Such that they're in this, you know, situation where you know they can't ever get out of the hole that they're in. And so that was something that you know particularly bothered me when I was in the Middle East. Serving as a naval officer, I volunteered with a local organization that helped a lot of those workers get ahead, helped a lot of those workers take advantage of their rights. And that was something that once I left the naval service, I continued to focus on during my time in law school. Rich Well of course thank you for your service, especially in this important area. And really, you're talking about people who are it sounds to me just powerless and probably hopeless most of the time an also. For you not taking anything for granted in in your life, and recognizing the privilege that you had, and the luck of being born, you know where you were and your socioeconomic status. John So lucky so lucky. I think of that everyday that I just was afforded so many opportunities. I mean both academically within my family and you know, extracurricularly to develop myself and to achieve my goals that you know so many people don't have. So the the lack of hope, the lack of vision because of the circumstances that people find them. You know, working with people in situations of exploitation is that that's not just the case for those who are, you know, in conditions of involuntary servitude where they're working not getting paid. But it's also the case in so many relationships, and particularly where there's any sort of abusive activity in those relationships that there can be extreme power differentials and power disparities that can lead to similar exploitation, where as a result of coercion and trickery. People are doing things victims. Survivors are doing things that they would never do otherwise and that that sort of alters their life substantially, right, right? Rich And you know, we could talk about sort of transition there into sort of the symptoms of the trauma that they're facing, which you know in many ways you could say is PTSD, and I I'd love to hear some of what you, what you've seen. And I also wanted to note that you do have some clinical training as well as your legal training so you're really in a unique position to be able to have increased empathy towards what they're experiencing when you're actually practicing law with them. Although you've never gone through what they've gone through, just to have some perspective. You know flashbacks heightened state like such as little noises and movements can cause an overreaction, negative intrusive thoughts rumination - just can't get the thoughts out of their head, challenges with being in or finding romantic relationships, lower self esteem, blaming oneself, distressing dreams, shame. You know a decrease in the level of functioning in personal life, professional life and obviously many many more. Those are some of the symptoms that in working with with you know, survivors of sexual abuse I've encountered. How about yourself? Anything that you want to touch on? John Yeah, and first let me say that I agree with you. You know I'll never understand the depths of the pain and the depths of the trauma that survivors of assault and trauma have experienced. To be let into their worlds to some small degree as I've tried to assist them legally and kind of provide them options and paths forward. I can't, you know, comprehend what that pain is and you know over the course of working with survivors throughout the years, I've seen many of the things that you've mentioned. I've met with clients who have these negative, intrusive thoughts, whereas we're talking through a chronology of events. You can just sort of see the memory right come into their mind and just completely take over their thought process and that's all they can sort of think about, you know, for several minutes of that, sort of terrible memory and you know, it's all encompassing. And as the attorney in that situation, you just sort of have to be patient and wait and really kind of proceed at their pace and and kind of take your cues from the person who's across the table from you to see when and if they're comfortable moving forward in the conversation. Rich Right, right? Rich 'cause you have an important job to do, but at the same time. Rich If. Rich Rich If if the person is not not able to provide the information you need, you're not going to push them. Rich You're going to kind of meet them where where they're at, and do you ever experience is another. Rich Another sort of symptom of a trauma. Rich If a person is flooded with a traumatic memories to dissociate. Rich Sort of. Rich That's their their brain protecting them and kind of pulling them. Rich Sort of almost out of their body, and so that they're not actually experiencing the pain at the time. Rich Have you? Rich In addition to someone sort of breaking down, crying and really getting upset when they were experiencing it? Rich Have you ever seen something like that, or the person is kind of almost like the person is not there in the room with you any longer? John Yeah, I've certainly seen a significant attachment in my conversations with survivors about the sort of episodes of trauma as they talk about them. John It's almost as if they're talking about events that happen to another person when it is sort of a memory that they're bringing up about themselves, but there's a significant kind of emotional detachment from what happened. Uh huh. John Which makes sense, you know, as you said, you know had. John Training and sort of trauma. John Informed lawyering and interviewing and recognizing that that distance that emotional separation between the event and you know what I'm relaying to my attorney right now is important for survival if nothing else. Rich Right, great point. Right? Rich All right, how about we jump into your area of expertise or an additional area of expertise? Rich I should say the legal rights of survive. Rich First, do you want to, you know I, I believe there is a relatively recent change in the law and I don't know where would you like to lead off with that. John Yeah, I think we could talk about sort of why statute of limitations exists when survivors of ****** trauma want to bring claims, either criminal or civil an and then kind of talk about how those might have changed. John Does that sound? John Right, yeah, that's great. John So in law, if you want to bring a claim, you generally don't have the whole course of your life to bring a legal claim. John There's certain time periods in place for how long you have, and that might seem unfair to the person who's experienced some sort of pain or trauma or casualty, but the reason for it is to add a little bit of certainty to society. John Right, so people can't, you know, Sue you 30 years from now for something that you did because you want to know that you can move on with your life, right? You want to know that you can, you know, not have to worry about the car accident from 25 years ago because that was resolved one way or the other. John In the first five years after that, right, right? Rich Yeah, and it's not just at these cases, it's it's every almost all legal cases. Rich There's statute of limitations. John Yep, and that's true for both criminal cases and civil cases, and I know that until I was in Moscow, I didn't fully appreciate the difference between those. John So would it be alright if I took just a minute to talk about the difference between civil and ****** John I'm sorry, civil and criminal case. John Yes. Rich Yeah, John, whatever you feel comfortable talking about, I I think the listeners would really be interested in hearing about their rights like you said, and civil cases, criminal cases. Rich So that's sort of the the main point is to provide the information so that if someone listening to this has experienced. Rich Yeah. Rich Rich Something that we've talking about that person can make a better decision on whether or not. Rich To contact you or another lawyer to to see what what remedies they might have. John Fantastic, well, you know when I meet with survivors of ****** trauma, a frequent question is should I bring a criminal case or should I bring a civil case and so the difference. John Big difference between those two is that a criminal case? John Will result in penalties for the person who committed. John The offence those penalties could be fines that go to the government. John Those penalties could be jail time. John Those penalties could be up term of probation. John But in either case, it's all designed around sort of penalising the person who did the wrong thing, so that hopefully they learned their lesson and don't do it. John In the future, very little. John Of the criminal justice system is designed to do anything for the survivor. John There's you know few mechanisms in place to see that the survivor is, you know, cared for is restored. There's a growing trend of what they call victim compensation funds, where you can say you know someone so broke into my house and stole $25,000 worth of my things. Can I get my $25,000 back from the state? John You know, that's that's one thing, but when it's a much more intangible loss, you know my childhood over the course of 15 years was robbed for me. John That's not the sort of thing you can apply to the victim compensation Fund for to get, you know, sort of meaningful repayment for, you know, they might be able to help you with out of pocket expenses. John Counseling maybe some you know vocational programs but. John Sort of. John Nothing life altering and so where people find that the criminal justice system is designed just to penalize the offender. John They say, well, you know what system could be designed to restore the survivor and open up new opportunities for the survivor and that would be our civil justice system where. John Instead of complaining to the police, you file a complaint against the person in court, see. John In money damages an that may sound cold, or it may sound you know, sort of money grubbing, but I think that you know, whereas jail time and probation time is the currency of the criminal justice system. John I mean, money. John Money really is the currency of justice. John Outside of prison, and so you know, if a person is going to feel vindicated, that what happened to them wasn't OK, it's probably because the other person is going to be ordered to, you know, pay them some amount of. John You know, and if the survivor maybe had their childhood robbed from them, if the survivor was denied opportunities in life because they weren't able to complete school or they weren't able to reach their full potential, perhaps money would open up doors to them that were never previously available, right? John That might have been available otherwise, but for the. John You know behavior of the offender. Rich Right? John So I think that's an important distinction in these two systems, and then it's sort of worth, you know, segueing to the statute of limitations that traditionally you have a very short amount of time to bring a criminal case. John You know to the police, or to bring a civil action. John And so in this case. John In Pennsylvania, that time was was rather limited, right? John You would have 10 years to bring a criminal case of ****** abuse in Pennsylvania, and you would only have until the age of 30 to bring a civil action seeking money damages. John If you were a survivor of ****** abuse. John And what legislatures around the country have been realizing? John As they interview more and more experts of trauma and hear stories of individuals who were victims of this trauma in their child? John Word they're realizing that it takes those survivors, oftentimes years to speak out, and I wonder in your practice do you do you sort of see that as? Rich Well, Oh yeah. Rich I would say in most scenarios, specially if the the trauma happened earlier in life, let's say as a as a teenager and now the persons in their 40s. Rich You know your brain is our brains are programmed to protect ourselves, just like I was talking about earlier about dissociating. Rich If we have something traumatic happened to us, and we don't kind of deal with it when it happens, deal with it being get professional help and really try to work through what happened in your mind too. Rich Get to a place. Rich I mean, you're never going to be fully at peace with what happened, but get to a place where it's not affecting your functioning in a big way on a daily basis. Rich But typically what happens is our person is not able to deal with it in the moment. Rich It's so traumatic and after not that long a period of time. Rich The brain will sort of push the memories deep into their subconscious and kind of repress them, and they're still there, but they're not readily available an you know in our consciousness and that's because if they are we can't function. Rich You know if this trauma is like it just happened and it's it's stuck in your head, you're not going to be able to. Rich Typically go to work and concentrate and be emotionally stable enough to. Rich Live life to the fullest, but the downside is it's still there and it is actually still affecting a person in many ways a lot, many of which the person may not even know. John Yeah. Rich Like I mentioned earlier about relationships, intimacy not sort of 1, not realizing why it's difficult for a person to be. Rich Have intimacy with great his art, his or her partner, and I'm not just talking about *** any kind of you know the full spectrum of intimacy that physical touch can. John Right? Rich Can trigger even the subconscious memories and make the person uncomfortable or scared? Rich Or we're not even engaged. Rich Try to engage in relationships because of because of what happened. John Yeah, yeah, I've seen a completely different affect from survivors when I, you know, sort of 1st meet with them and this is something that they've you know, maybe not spoken about to someone else yet, or maybe just to one other person and it's still something that they're very much holding inside versus you know at the end of the case when. John You know they've had an outcome that is, you know, satisfying to them and and they feel empowered. John Maybe for the first time they feel like new doors are open to them for the first time and it's just, it's like a completely different, you know, source of light beaming into their life. John It's really incredible thing to see. John Yeah. John Rich Yeah, absolutely. Rich And I mean it's it's challenging any type. Rich Old memory that's difficult for us that we try to bring up years later. Rich That can be a really challenging process and this I can't think of very many others that would be more difficult. Rich And it's important for people to remember that it it could get worse before it gets better. Rich I mean, emotionally, because you're bringing up all these memories and. Rich And that takes a lot of courage to do something like that, but ultimately, to work on these things and and and. Rich And get into a better emotional state. Rich It's it's really what it is. Rich Is an investment in their future? Rich Because yeah, I mean we all want to be happy and healthy. Rich And if there are things that have happened in our lives that are holding us back, even something like you know you were bullied as a kid. Rich And then as you. Rich And you never really learned how to deal with that, and those feelings remained inside you, and now you're an adult and. Rich You know? Rich A professional and your supervisor is has a real toxic personality and is like a screamer it could. Rich It'll resurrect and trigger a lot of those feelings that you had as a as a child, and you might overreact more than. Rich Let's say that the average person you know starts screaming back at the person, whereas maybe if you didn't have that childhood experience. Rich Or if you did have that experience, but you're able to work through it. Rich You'd be able to react better to a difficult experience later in life, so I think there is. Rich I just bring up that example to say that there's there's parallels in all traumatic memories or traumatic experience experiences that are now memories that we can all work. Rich Do our best to work through to be in a better place. John Now absolutely, and you know along those lines I wanted to ask you if you find to be the case in your profession of sort of counseling and therapy. John The same thing that I find when I meet with survivors of ****** trauma that. John Often there's two big reasons that they don't. John Want to address this in a sort of therapy setting or in a legal setting, and I think the first of those reasons is that it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about. John An uncomfortable member to bring up and it just brings up a lot of pain an the second piece of that I think, is this belief that there's no use in bringing it up. John Because I simply have no evidence of it, and so who's going to believe me? John Do you? John Do you see those same two kind of reservations? Rich Yeah, absolutely, and just just about every every case it's. Rich It's painful, it's horrible. Rich And it's not just sort of working on it through therapy. Rich It's that next step which you've touched on is working on it with you because it's it's one thing to think about it. Rich Talk about it with a therapist. Rich Talk about it with friends or partner or or whomever, and it's quite another thing too. Rich You know, bring a legal case which those are public filings, and maybe you're testifying in court or in depositions, and you know, that's and then you have to maybe face you're the person you're accusing of, who, maybe you haven't seen in years? Rich Sure, sure. Rich Rich You know, let's say if something happened to you in college and. Rich And now it's 10 years later and you've established yourself in your life. Rich Maybe you have a young child and feel as though I don't want to put my family through this and all of those reservations, but sort of. Rich What's the point, sure. Rich Or because in the legal system? Rich I mean, it's almost never, maybe never a done deal. Rich A sure thing, you just never know what can happen, so there's always. Rich I mean, I wasn't a litigator, but I I would think that there's always some percentage of risk that you're not going to win that there's no guarantee that you're going to win the case, so that's sort of. Yeah, that's you know the client or person has to weigh that. Well, if there's a 10% chance that I'm not going to win. Rich Oh operative. Rich Rich Is it worth everything? Rich I'm going to have to go through for two years or have along, the case is going to be and that trauma? Rich And is the person going to, you know, do this or do that? Rich I'm going to be in the newspaper or whatever it is. Rich I know this is out of this. Rich For sure. Rich Rich I don't know if any of this will. John No, those are those are. Rich Be the case, but. John Those are all things I talked with my clients about. John You know, if you want to move forward with this like you have to recognize that you know these will be public filings, just as you said, you may be testifying just a few feet away from the person who did this to you. John Your family is likely to be involved. John You know your kids might get asked on the playground about this, you know. John And they they have to wait. John Those things, but I do want to take just a second if I can. John To kind of myth, bust around an idea that I hear both in these circles. John You know when talking with survivors and a lot of other sort of legal circles from potential clients where they say you know I don't have any evidence, and so I'm sure we won't succeed. John And I want to bust that on both the criminal justice front and also in this sort of realm of civil justice. John In these, you know, kind of money damage cases that we're talking about, and so in the criminal justice side of things in cases of ****** assault when someone is facing down potential jail time. John You know, as a result of their conduct, one of the instructions that juries are read before the jury goes out to deliberate is that in cases of ****** assault, because evidence is often so difficult to come by if the jury believes the testimony of the survive. Rich Right? John They don't need any other evidence to convict. John Really. John John They can convict the defendant who's accused of these crimes just on the words of the survivor alone. John If they believe that survivor is telling the truth, and I think a lot of people don't know that. Rich That's a great point because you know what is the physical evidence that would happen if something if someone was assaulted, they would go to the ER. Rich They would do tests, DNA. Rich And it's and you know that's best case scenario. John Best case, yeah. Rich But you know that doesn't happen all the time or or maybe hardly at all, so you're talking years later. But Rich You're right, there is no physical, likely no physical evidence. John Yeah, so then you know we talk about the civil justice side, the standard of evidence is even lower on the civil justice side. John You know, instead of having to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. John You just have to prove that it's more likely than not that the thing. John Curd, that's why so many civil cases settle out of court because, you know, people are afraid that you'll be able to, you know, prove that it's more likely than not that this thing a curd an in one of you know my cases with a client who I think had sort of fantastic transformation from the beginning of the case to the end of the case. John He came in talking about ****** assault that he suffered about 30 years ago, and as you can imagine, there was absolutely no evidence. John I mean, just nothing, no documents, no clothing, nothing, not even any witnesses. John No one could be helpful to his case. John And so my recommendation was, why don't you sit down and write about what happened right about your relationship, right about the big picture, right? John About the specifics, and so we did that and he brought it to me and I looked at the sort of painful memories that he was able to dig up, and I said that. John Great, keep writing. John So he went back and he kept writing and he got some more details and some more specific instances and he came back and said that's awesome. John Keep going and I think you know by the time he had finished writing. John You know we had 10 or 15 pages of sort of detailed challenging really, really challenging memories. John You know, I can't imagine how. John How difficult that was for him to sit down and sort of parse through those, but guess what was exhibits abcdefg H to my complaint. John That I sent the offender was all of those writings. John All those Journal entries saying here's the specifics of what happened. John Here's the inescapable truth you know to be the case that you can't get out from under. John And don't you know? John That case settled before we ever had to litigate. Rich It wow, now you did a really good technique there because. Rich A lot of times, if we're talking about something that happened a long time ago because it's kind of parts of it are repressed. Rich The more we talk about it, or in this case right about it, it'll trigger memories and details that come up. Rich So that was a great exercise. Rich Obviously, for the for the outcome of the case. Rich But yeah, that's great. Rich 1. Rich So anything else that you want to touch on. John Yeah, we sort of got sidetracked a little bit when talking about statute of limitations, and so we were saying that they were, you know, sort of a short time window to bring your claim. And the great news for survivors of ****** trauma is that in late 2019. John Pennsylvania's governor, Governor Wolf, signed into law three different bills that taken together, really eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal charges. John So you can bring. John Charges to the police of ****** abuse at anytime in your life now. And you can file a civil claim for money damages until you're 55 years old. So it's another 25 years on top of what it was. John OK. John And you know this might be relevant to your practice. John It also creates a fund for survivors to receive counseling. John So if you come forward and say I was a victim of, you know, ****** trauma years ago. John But I'd love to go to counseling and I just can't afford it. John That the state of Pennsylvania now has a small reserve to help you do that. Rich That's amazing that that is so forward thinking that kind of a kind of a resource, because you know finances can be a barrier to to anyone, depending on what what they're looking to do. Rich But as far as getting treatment for. Rich It's not just really treatment for what happened, it's also treatment for the process of bringing this case and all of the emotions at that person. Rich Going to be dealing with during the course of the case. John Absolutely, absolutely. John And you know, I think that there's some reservation, probably about speaking with lawyers generally about these kinds of things. John You know, I think that there's a concern that lawyers may not be trauma informed, or you may not have the vocabulary to talk about these things. John And that's a real concern. John An probably also some. John Concerned that you know, once I bring this to a lawyer, there's no stopping it. John You know that's going to be. John It's going to be public the next day, and I just think it's important that survivors know that. John They are in charge of whether there's a case, and then if there's a case, how far it goes, they remain in the driver seat at all times, and that survivor should make sure they find an attorney who's telling them that that they determine when and where to say, know when and where to stop. Rich Great. John And how far things progress? John And it's up to the attorney to listen to their client and ask for direction every step of the way. John And then if the client says this is all the further I want to go, that's all the further they. Rich Go, that's a great point. Rich I mean, you're an advocate for them. Rich You're not the person may. Rich Making the decisions you weigh the risk you think about the the likelihood of winning and lay it all out and then the person decides. Rich And I like. Rich Also what you said about just because you make a decision right now to bring the case doesn't mean that's how it's going to be forever. Rich If if you decide if they make an offer, you reject it. Rich But then sometime later. Rich You decide you know what I want. Rich I just want this to be over and that that offer is good enough for me. Rich You could do that. John Yeah, Rich, let me ask you as a therapist if a client was working with an attorney on a ****** assault case and the attorney needed to reach out to a therapist to basically have someone for their client, you know to sort of meet with the work on that healing from mental health perspective. John Is that something that? John You could do kind of in tandem with a lawyer while the client is receiving legal services on one side, then sort of therapeutic services on the other. Rich Yeah absolutely, especially my background as an attorney I think I would be a good sort of bridge between both worlds and. Rich You know, obviously the client would have to sign a HIPAA consent form so that the the lawyer and the therapist can talk to each other and and you know it could be limited on what they could talk about. Rich It's totally up to the person, just like we were saying earlier up to the case, but. Rich If I, I think it would be an important partnership because what the client is uncovering in therapy would definitely help the case and the lawyer you know could be informed of these new. Rich The facts are always there, it's just sort of the remembering of the facts and details. Rich Like the client you were talking about earlier, who was journaling and new new memories were coming to light over and over, and I think you know the lawyer could also. Rich So give the therapists a heads up on what's coming up, like hey, you know. Rich Next month we're going to have a pretty tough deposition. Rich Our clients going to be deposed by opposing counsel. Rich This particular opposing counsel is pretty aggressive, and I think it would be good if the clients up to it to prepare. Rich Emotionally for that right? Rich Because it's sort of the two piece of preparation. Rich There's your preparation as the legal counsel. Rich Like you know, these are the questions you'll likely be asked and you know, let's go over, you know, prepare yourself in that regard, but also right emotionally. Rich Prepare yourself if you're sitting there and someone asks that difficult question. Rich If you're able to prepare ahead of time, it's not going to. Rich Likely be as shocking or hitting you as hard because you already know it's going to going to happen. John Miller Rich I'm sure it'll still be emosh. Rich So I think it's you know it could help. Rich The legal case could be the driving force for the person to really work on these emotions and the work on these emotions could lead to significant improvements of the quality of the legal case, yeah. John And can you think of a sort of principle of psychotherapy that kind of speaks to the way in which? John A monetary result could result in kind of healing of 1's mental health. Rich Yeah, well, I guess you could say I mean the word that comes to mind is is closure. It's you know like you said earlier, they're never going to fully be made whole because it is an intangible. It's not like you. So you stole my guitar. It was worth $1000. You gave me $1000. I bought a new guitar. Right? Rich Anything with that you might have emotional attachment to that particular guitar, but really, when we're talking about this, these types of crimes there isn't a one to one perfect relationship, but I think there is from the people I've worked with. Rich There. Rich And just people, I not necessarily were clients, but just people I know and through my training and things like that. Rich There is value in the criminal case. Rich There is value in the civil case and it's it's justice feeling as though you you had your say because you've been silent. Rich Or forced to be silent in some ways for so long, maybe for years and scared and ashamed that you were holding this in an A shame that it happened. Rich There's a lot of blaming oneself that goes on. Rich It's my fault if I didn't. Rich Maybe if I didn't just go to the bar that night. Rich You know what? Rich If I stayed home, this wouldn't have happened. Rich Even though you didn't do anything wrong, you went out with friends and it's just there is a horrible person who did a horrible thing to you. John Yeah. Rich And so if you're able to, the closure piece of it is almost like the the logistical thing that happened. Rich Or the concrete thing that happened. Rich Maybe there's some closure with that, and that could give benefit to. Rich The emotional side of it that you feel as though you stood up for yourself. Rich You did something frankly brave. Rich Incredibly brave that you know I can't imagine what that would be like to just stand up there and say you did this to me and and you know. Rich So it could be an incredibly. Rich It's like that it's it's that 2 two fold. Rich It's can have incredible benefits for you, but also be incredibly difficult at the same time, so yeah. John I love the picture that you painted of the sort of therapist an lawyer working in tandem. John Kind of keeping one another informed. John To best support the survivor, who's going through? John Basically that gauntlet during that time you know and having all those challenges sort of presented after one another to have that team of professionals kind of working with them. John It's it's a really awesome thing to think about along those lines. John I'm curious, do you have any sort of reservations about if the. John Client told you that you know kind of gave you permission to testify on their behalf. John Would there be any? John Reason that you couldn't, you know. John Go to court eventually and potentially testify about. John You. John Know how that survivor has maybe grown over the course of therapy as a result of their meetings with you. Rich Yeah, I mean there's nothing there would be nothing stopping me from doing that. Rich As long as or any therapist I should say to just to make it more general. Rich As long as the the client signs a HIPAA form, a consent release form that you know, and I would say it would be important for the therapist to and the lawyer to go over what do you want to actually talk about? Rich Because you know the goal is not to go up there and like. Rich Read the progress notes that I've for every session that I've done for the year that we've been working together, you really want to. Rich Just like I'm sure with the survivors testimony or anyone else you want to distill it down to the key points and you know, think about the strategy involved and things like that so. John Absolutely. Rich It's, you know, I've seen it in different ways, some. Rich I think it's more common for the therapist to provide something like a letter that to the court that details sort of a an overview of the work that they've done together and in some cases there. Rich There is testimony that happens as well, so it really depends on the individual therapist, the individual client, the lawyer, ultimately, what would each person be comfortable with and. Rich And what would be in the best interest of the of the case as well? John Certainly, and you know, I bring that up just because that is, you know, can be an additional form of evidence, especially for cases you know years and years old, and there's no sort of physical evidence. John So maybe the person, journals and has some writings, but maybe they also, as you said, get a report from their therapist that's given to the court that says, hey, here's my experience with this person here. John But they've said and fact that case that I referenced with the gentleman who had done a lot of writing. John He did have a report from his therapist that I think move the needle significantly in the ways that it talked about. John You know the way that he presented his story and how it had so much of like indicia of reliable. John But it gave you know anyone who was reading it more of a reason to believe that what was written had actually occurred. John As tragic as it was. John Yeah. John Rich That's great. Rich Yeah, it's a it's in, you know it's a medical professional, an expert who's. Rich You know doesn't have any. Rich Not really have any. Rich It's really they're trying to give objective evidence of you know what we talked about and and observations and things like that. Rich So sure, it's anything like that can definitely add to the case, just like I would think. Rich Just like physical evidence as well. Rich If they go to a medical professional. John Yeah. John Yeah, absolutely. Rich Alright, well this has been. Rich This has been really great John. Rich I appreciate your time and your expertise. Rich I really enjoyed speaking with you as well and. Rich What types of services do you offer for survivors and how could they someone reach you if they wanted to? Rich You know learn more. John Yeah, so I think it's important that survivors just know what their options are, know what possibilities are available to them, and the best way to do that is just by talking with a lawyer and. John Most lawyers should be willing to give a free consultation around this kind of an issue. I know I certainly do, and the survivor wanted to reach out to me. They could call my desk phone directly at 484412061. John Seven and I'd be happy to speak with them and hear about you know what sort of options they're looking for. John Let them know what options are available and just give them sort of a light of the legal landscape an and so that they can be as informed as possible going forward. John And you know whatever decision they ultimately make. John It's completely up to them and I support them in whatever they want to do, but at least I want to make sure that they are informed of what their options are. Rich And sounds great. Rich Alright? Rich Well again John. Rich Thanks so much for being here. Rich Really enjoyed the conversation and. Rich I wish you the best. John Rich, thank you. John It's been a pleasure talking about this. John I'm so grateful that you're invested in supporting survivors in this way as well, and really look forward to working with you in the coming years. Rich Sounds good, take care. John OK. Rich Well, that's it for this podcast episode. Rich Please subscribe, rate and comment. Rich And share on social media and otherwise. Rich Is it richlambino.com? Rich Learn more about my counseling practice. Rich See how to contact me? Rich Connect with me on social media and read my blog and E books to learn about other topics. Rich Most importantly, if you or someone you know you're looking for more support. Rich Here look forward to you joining me for other podcasts at the service. Rich Take care and be one. Yeah.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed
|
CONTACT
(302) 273-0700 info@richlombino.com 1521 Concord Pike Wilmington, DE 19803 963 N Penn Dr West Chester, PA 19380 Teletherapy available everywhere in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and Florida. |