I look at him while he sits on the stand. His big, sloped shoulders rise and fall with each statement, sometimes obscuring his almost indiscernible neck. His bloodshot eyes glower at my client. I can hear his testimony, but I am not distinguishing words so much as hearing a spewed diatribe. All I kept thinking is that he looks like a warthog.

Meanwhile, my client is curled up next to me in the fetal position, shaking and gripping my right hand. She weighs maybe 100 pounds and is about 5-foot-4. She has lost 15 pounds in the last 40 days. The warthog had beaten her so severely that the evidence photos seemed awash in purple and blue hues. It is the spring of 1996, and I am sitting at the complainant’s table at one of my first court hearings involving domestic violence. Personal protection orders were new to the State of Michigan, and this case was one of the first to be heard in that county.

At one point, the judge calls opposing counsel to chambers and expresses his disbelief in my client’s position. He pointedly asks me how he could reasonably find the warthog in violation if the wife sometimes initiated contact with him. I admitted that I could not explain my client’s behavior but told him that I had a domestic violence expert ready to testify who could. Thank goodness the expert was there. She explained not only to the court, but also to me, why my client exhibited some of the behaviors that she did. At this point in my young career, many of my domestic violence clients often confused me with their behavior. The judge, newly educated like me, listened to the expert and found the warthog in violation of the personal protection order. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

I did not know the significance of the case until a year later when I received a telephone call from the county clerk. She asked me if I knew that the warthog had died. I told her “no,” and before I could say anything else she whispered conspiratorially, “Do you want a copy of his death certificate?” For the clerk, this certificate served as a kind of memento, highlighting the first time the local court had found a domestic violence perpetrator in violation of a personal protection order. It was then that I realized my work is not performed in a vacuum, that what I do in court on behalf of a single client impacts the whole community.

I think about “Reanna,” who is sitting hunched forward with a clutch of bags and papers nestled by her feet. I watch her as she gently rocks herself while peering at her fingers. She is dressed in black clothing and is soaking wet after having walked two miles to my office through a heavy snowfall. She refused my earlier suggestion to take the local transit bus, stating that it is safer for her to be out in the open.

Reanna cries uncontrollably. I tell her there is no hurry to tell me her story. I tell her she can just sit there until she is ready to speak. I get her coffee, sit down again, and wait. Reanna blurts out that they hurt her. I ask who and she tells me the medical staff. I am about to ask more questions when she swats with her right hand at the air near her ear and emphatically whispers, “Stop it!”

“Are you hearing voices?” I ask.

Reanna looks up at me. “Yes. How did you know?”

I assure her that it is just a guess, given how she is acting. We discuss her medications (past and present), the current stash of drug samples she is hoarding in her bag and not taking, and whether she has a caseworker at community mental health. Reanna informs me that she is living at the Motel 6 for the winter. During the summer, she hoards her SSI payments by living outside underneath the bridge near the community mental health building.

Getty Images/Terry Vine

Throughout her recitation, she breaks down in tears repeatedly. Reanna tells me that she is afraid to speak to her mental-health caseworker because she might order her to be locked up. I ask her if she will let me contact a private mental health worker to meet with her today. She agrees to this and I arrange it immediately.

Growing up, Reanna suffered severe abuse at the hands of her grandfather and stepmother. Her grandfather repeatedly raped her, and her stepmother often tied her up and pulled swatches of hair from her head. Reanna suffered even more as she attempted to protect her younger siblings. By age 13, she fled her home and worked her way north. Over the years, Reanna survived by aligning herself with various men who abused and sexually assaulted her. She has lived in the region for 15 years and now is married. Her current husband is an abusive alcoholic from whom she is hiding. Some time during this period, a police officer, on the pretense of investigating a break-in, found reason to question Reanna and eventually sexually assaulted her. Reanna’s husband blamed her for the assault and beat her. She fled from him approximately four years ago and has lived without permanent housing since. Yet when I ask her what her current problem is, her reply is a debt collection action pending against her by the local hospital that is somehow tangled up with a malpractice claim she initiated.

I find a local attorney who is willing to investigate the medical malpractice claim and handle the debt collection action. The private mental health worker informs me that Reanna is taking the wrong medication for her symptoms. She also arranges for Reanna to be placed on the low-income housing list for seniors and disabled persons. Feeling better, Reanna elects to reconnect with her community mental health worker and begins receiving more supportive services. However, she is too afraid to meet with the private attorney or to go to court alone with him. When she is uncomfortable, Reanna is still prone to pulling her black hood over her head, believing that this makes her invisible. So I volunteer to attend the meetings and court dates with her to ease her distress. Reanna is not ready to start divorce proceedings against her husband. She is too afraid at the moment.

Reanna’s story demonstrates how insidious and crippling domestic violence can be and how this cruel abuse impacts its victims on many different levels. Yet sadly, for every Reanna my legal services program is able to assist, there are at least four times as many who float through our communities unaided by anyone.

Legal Services of Northern Michigan (LSNM), where I work, is one of the true rural legal aid programs left in the nation. Rural communities like the ones served by my program across its 27,644 square-mile service area have an intense dichotomy of wealth and poverty. Couple this with the isolation of our clients, and a program like ours stands out as a vital resource to the impoverished members of the community. It is this ability to impact a community, through litigation, that appeals most to me.

When I read about grants promoting 1-800 legal lines, kiosks, and pro se materials as a means to expand legal services delivery in rural areas, I am concerned. Technology has its place in a legal services office, but in my view, not at the cost of a real presence in the courts. Widespread dissemination of legal information cannot replace actual litigation, especially on behalf of domestic violence victims and in other cases where there is a power disparity. Take my first client’s situation: She would not have prevailed representing herself against the warthog and his counsel. Or in Reanna’s situation, it is self-evident that legal services’ physical presence made the difference in the end.

Ten years ago I fell into domestic violence work by necessity. Rather than embracing it, incredibly, it embraced me.

LSNM’s staff is committed to providing quality representation for domestic violence victims. As a result, LSNM attorneys are recognized as community leaders in this area. Most serve on domestic violence task forces and provide free training to local domestic violence shelter advocates. So long as there is a possibility for me to effect change through my work and for me to continue to collaborate with my highly dedicated and professional colleagues, I will proudly remain a legal services advocate in northern Michigan.

Explaining to others why I continue in this profession is difficult for me. I am not one for self-reflection or to analyze why I do what I do. I just do it because I believe it needs to be done. I never had a burning desire to work in family law or with domestic violence victims. In fact, I never took family law classes while in law school. Quite simply, 10 years ago I fell into domestic violence work by necessity. Rather than embracing it, incredibly, it embraced me. Over time, I have learned that it is advocating on behalf of domestic violence victims that has the greatest impact on poverty issues within a community.

n Mary Kavanaugh-Gahn is the deputy director of Legal Services of Northern Michigan and works out of the program’s Traverse City office.