Family court can be a brutal experience for women, especially those who have experienced abuse, neglect, and violence. While the standards in family courts seem neutral, gender bias has infiltrated every corner of our world, especially our highly conservative court system. Women face an uphill battle, a bias in favor of believing men, and a culture that prioritizes men’s access to their children over children’s safety and well-being.

The way you express yourself in family court is critical. You’ll need to be succinct, to present as the sort of “good mother” courts respect, and depict the violence and abuse in a way judges understand. Your lawyer may not know how to help you do this—and even if they do, they may charge you tens of thousands of dollars to help you craft your image.

That’s where Kaitlyn comes in. She’s not a substitute for legal advice. She’s a supportive advocate who can help you understand family court norms and better meet judge’s expectations. Her message is a hopeful one: strategy matters, and may radically change the outcome.

In this podcast, we talk about tipping the odds more in your favor, effective family court strategies, how trauma can negatively impact advocacy, and how to anticipate and manage bias.

You can visit Kaitlyn on Instagram here. Kaitlyn offers one-on-one family court strategy sessions, and you can book a session with her here. Some other resources from Kaitlyn include:

In the next few weeks, I’ll be talking quite a bit about how courts fail to protect women, including to the point of allowing their partners to murder them. So if you’re not a subscriber, sign up now to get it all in your inbox.