ATHENS, Ga. – Georgia’s attorneys and other legal professionals, social workers, advocates and self-advocates will learn strategies for achieving legal justice in both civil and criminal courts for individuals with disabilities in an April 20 symposium at the Gwinnett Center.
Titled “Legal Justice for Individuals with Disabilities Who Have Experienced Violence or Abuse,” the symposium is sponsored by the Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia
According to event coordinator Jenny Manders of UGA, participants will learn how to interview survivors with disabilities, successful strategies in criminal prosecution and civil litigation, and the state and national resources for supporting individuals with disabilities who encounter violence and abuse.
Keynote speakers are Laura Rogers of Washington, D.C., and Timothy G. Lynch of Boston. Rogers is a senior attorney at the American Prosecutors Research Institute’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. She conducts training on the prosecution and investigation of criminal cases involving maltreatment and sexual abuse against individuals with developmental disabilities. As a prosecutor in San Diego, she tried more than 120-felony jury trails with a 92 percent success rate. Her presentation will focus on building successful cases for prosecution.
Lynch, a partner in the firm of Swartz, McKenne & Lynch, specializes in complex tort cases. He received acclaim for a civil case in which a young man with a disability died from the result of violence from his attendant. This case resulted in a verdict of $26.5 million, at the time the largest reported tort verdict in Massachusetts’s history.
The presentations by Rogers and Lynch will be followed by a response from a panel of Georgia advocates.
The symposium runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in rooms 2/3 AB of the Gwinnett Center located at 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Duluth, Ga. 30097. For a registration form (deadline April 14) or more information, contact Sherry Lee at 706/542-6089, salee@uga.edu. There is no registration fee; application for Continuing Legal Education credit will cost $20.
The Institute on Human Development and Disability is Georgia’s Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service, a unit of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at UGA.
