Witness Preparation Australia

10/07/2022

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Have you ever wondered why someone would gaslight you? So many victims of coercive control face disbelief when they try to get help, because too few understand how this insidious abuse presents. it’s not enough to have a tick-a-box approach to risk assessments in these cases. There needs t...

25/11/2021

The series Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton is one of my favourite shows.

It can be very difficult for victims to understand how their ‘truth’ is not ‘the truth’, but merely their version of the truth.

It can be even more difficult for victims to understand how their case, which they all tell me is the truth, can be destroyed by effective cross examination.

My work involves drawing out the weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and inconsistencies in a clients case as set out in the affidavits, which is their evidence in chief.

This snipper from Goliath S4 E6 caught my attention so I captured it to share here.

Watch how quickly a witness being prepped goes from certainty to absolute devastation in less than two minutes by effective questioning by competent counsel.

The certainty and self assurance of their position as a truthful honest witness is punctured in a few questions, through effective witness preparation.

This is what I do.

As you’ll hear Patty say in the background, better the witness face these questions during prep than in the witness box at court.

I always tell those I’m prepping the same thing. Better to be angry, hurt, afraid, worried, flustered, distressed, confused, defensive and floundering with me, than in the witness box.

It’s not about changing evidence; it’s always about preparation and learning to recognise somatic responses, triggering questions, defensive behaviours et al and managing ones own behaviour so that cogent, honest, forthright, and appropriate answers are given during cross examination.

In under three minutes, this witnesses motives for being a whistleblower in this current season’s storyline has been blown apart. It’s shifted from the drug companies ‘Big Tobacco’ approach to withholding crucial research over decades about the harm it’s products cause, to one of vindictive, spiteful, lashing out for purely personal motives.

This snippet is what I consider a perfect example of how easy it is to turn a victims case from one of abuse to one of personal vindictive revenge and alienation.

Although it’s obviously scripted, put yourself in the witnesses shoes and feel how easy it would be for anyone’s case to be flipped so easily.

Witness preparation is about preparing you for what’s going to come so you don’t implode in the witness box. It’s that simple.

25/07/2021

Witness Preparation provides strategic support for victims of domestic abuse in family law proceedings.

We know how to deal with the abuser the legal system can't, or won't, acknowledge.

We understand the abuser in ways your lawyer can't.

We do pro-bono or a flat rate of 0.5% of final settlement*

We know what it feels like to be unable to access legal support.

Property proceedings aren't funded by legal aid, which is where we can help.

We are the last option in most cases we take on, and our clients always wish they'd had us from the beginning.

We don't do ordinary. We do the extraordinary.

We can improve your outcome, improve your evidence, and improve your cross-examination experience.

We aren't lawyers. We are highly skilled and trained in family law, specialising in digital evidence and cross-examination techniques. We know how trials work and how to prepare your case to get the best outcome.

We make it simple.

We help you regain your power and agency in a legal process that chews victims up and spits them out.

You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Check out our podcast series where we unpack everything to do with family law and the legal system in Australia.

www.witnesspreparation.com.au

23/06/2021

Why victims can’t afford legal fees in Family Law…

It’s simple, really. As the Meerkats would say…seeemples!

Victims are often left homeless and destitute as a result of domestic abuse, and the protracted, sustained, and debilitating family law system they find themselves in.

Rent is exorbitant. Unemployment benefits barely cover the rent, and there’s definitely no room for luxuries like food, let alone the decadence of 2ply toilet paper.

A single person on jobseeker gets $385.20 per week including rent assistance and a pharmaceutical allowance. That’s $385.20 per week. Think about that, and consider what rent carves out of that. An ‘average’ weekly rent is probably around $300 per week.

That leaves $85.20 per week for food, fuel, utilities, bills, medications, public transport, rego, and let’s not forget you’ve got to have the internet so you can use job active and myGov and all the online portals that have become so critical during and since COVID.

That’s $12.17 per day to live on after you’ve paid rent.

So when you’re a separated older woman living on jobseeker, with no legal aid because property cases aren’t covered by Victoria Legal Aid, no financial resources to draw upon, and no way of affording the private legal pathway, what do you do?

You usually end up homeless, destitute, and losing your family law case because of your circumstances.

We balance this by being different, and giving women back their power and agency in a legal system that churns through victims as if they didn’t exist.

If you, or someone you know, is in the family law war zone, we can help.

We don’t just ‘advocate’ and validate you. We fight, we help you develop strategies, and we find the evidence you need that’s been overlooked much of the time. We lived your case, so we know how tight those shoes are you walk in. We understand the blisters better than anyone, except for you.

https://lnkd.in/g65jHbH

www.witnesspreparation.com.au

21/06/2021

So you want to email the judge….ouchies…don’t do it. Step away from the keyboard!

Support the show https://www.buymeacoffee.com/witnessprep

Available on all good podcast apps and at www.witnesspreparation.com.au

The do's and don't's of communicating with your family law judge.

21/06/2021

Wish there was a way to tell if your barrister is any good? Yeah, me too. We delve into the mystery of what makes a good, bad, ugly and incompetent barrister.

Support the show https://www.buymeacoffee.com/witnessprep

Available on all good podcast apps and at www.witnesspreparation.com.au

Wish there was a way to tell if your barrister is any good? Yeah, me too. We delve into the mystery of what makes a good, bad, ugly and incompetent barrister.

21/06/2021

Following on from our discussion about costs, without prejudice communications, and so forth, this episode unpacks the Calderbank offer and how it works.

21/06/2021

New episodes released.

Check out the series at all good podcast services or listen here: www.witnesspreparation.com.au

16/06/2021

Did you know we have a regular podcast series where we talk about psychopaths in family law and how to survive the process if you’re in it.

We don’t do dry and dull. We take you on a ride as we rip away the legal language and make it more accessible and easy to understand.

We explain the terminology and shorthand terms used by lawyers and barristers.

We explore legal concepts and principles that victims need to know in a way that is unique. We don’t do bu****it.

Our podcast series “Surviving The Legal System With A Psychopath In Australia” was recently added to the podcast directory “Great Australian Pods” and we are so proud to be recognised as a uniquely Australian product in this way.

Check out our awesome series at www.witnesspreparation.com.au

16/06/2021

Witness Preparation- Family Law - Psychological Shock

Victim survivors hold themselves tightly in order to cope with the dreadful onslaught during family law proceedings. They may not feel it, but it’s there.

It’s an arena for abuse and trauma, yet very few in the family law sector warn their clients that there is the very real prospect of going into psychological shock at the end of a trial, or afterwards. These are complex reactions to the holding tightly to our emotions in order to keep focused and functional.

I always explain that there will be an emotional drop at some point, and usually I’m brushed off with a ‘nah, i’ll be so glad it’s finally over!’

Well I beg to differ.

Whatever your expectations are, prepare for the emotional and somatic reaction, and it won’t be the terrifying experience you’ll feel, but an awareness of your body finally feeling safe enough to let go; letting go of the rigid control you’re had to assume since all this began.

Have a warm, heavy blanket to wrap around you.

Have plenty of tissues and water on hand.

Soothing music.

A friend with you is best, or available by telephone.

Have a telephone counselling service handy to talk to.

Understand this is a physical reaction to the grief, loss, regret, betrayal, rage, anger, hurt, harm, and all that you’ve endured to get to this moment in time. Let it all out. Cry, feel it spill over, let it take as long as it needs to.

Make time your friend.

Do the things you love. A warm bath, read a book, watch tv.

It will pass. It may come back, and that’s ok. You know it, understand it, and every time it comes you know you can breath through it til it passes.

This is real strength; sitting with the painful knowing it will pass, but scared nonetheless.

And find something to giggle about, because laughter is really a healing activity.

Now go imagine this lion and your ex in the selfie…see…betcha you laughed. Mission accomplished.

16/06/2021

We have podcasts, we have a free digital book to download for your planning stages of leaving a toxic and abusive relationship, and we have cute kitties in fluffy pink tutu’s to mug if you need to cry.

The QR code takes you just where you need to go, and we’re only an email, message, or flag run up a pole away.

We don’t do bank hours.

Our usual first consult can go for hours. We don’t time keep or watch.

What we do have in bucket loads is empathy, compassion, insight, care, and lived experience of what you’re going through.

We’re doing here what we wish had been available for us.

This another part of our grassroots activism driven by those who can, for those who are in need.

It’s about time we were seen, heard, and noted. We aren’t going away, and we will get louder.

If services won’t refer to us because we aren’t lawyers, then something is very wrong in the DV sector. We are highly skilled, and we get results. We listen instead of glossing over. We attend to victims instead of band aid triaging to have them sit quietly in the good girl corner like a good victim should.

We are no longer willing to be the good, quiet victim in this sector.

We have value, we are valuable. Our knowledge and skills are wrought in the fire of court fuelled furnaces and we have withstood the onslaught on our souls by our abusers and the family law system. We stand for victims, and our cause is one where lives are at risk every day.

When our victim clients tell their DV case workers about our services, the response is ‘are they lawyers?’ And because of that response, we get ignored, and victims are refused access to us. This is a disgraceful state of affairs, when govt funding stops appropriate referrals to community driven family law support.