The Hennepin County Family Court holds first-appearance court domestic abuse hearings four days each week. The Family Justice Center makes a room available for an attorney to meet with Order for Protection (OFP) petitioners during these court sessions. CMLS and Tubman will staff this clinic with volunteer and staff attorneys for a minimum of three days per week. These clinic attorneys will see any petitioner who seeks advice where there is no conflict of interest. They will provide advice on how to best proceed and full representation where the client qualifies and that full representation will be most helpful to a petitioner.

CMLS, and their subcontractor Tubman’s, core work is to provide pro bono legal services to  low-income victims of domestic violence, particularly cases involving children or when the other party is represented by an attorney. This funding will be used to pay for .70 of a staff attorney and 1.0 FTE legal services coordinator who will help recruit, manage and train volunteer attorneys who will provide free legal representation and advice to qualifying petitioners of OFPs. Priority will be given to petitioners with the most need, typically where children have been abused, or where the respondent has a lawyer, or where the victim has language or cultural barriers.

This agreement releases funds from contingency to the Court Functions budget as adopted in the 2018 budget.