CLINICAL & SKILLS PROGRAMS > Domestic Violence Law Practicum

About the Director
Nancy K.D. Lemon

Contact Info
Phone: (510) 525-3164
Email: nlemon@berkeley.edu
Fax: (510) 643-2673

Biography

As an undergraduate, Nancy K.D. Lemon helped create the first Women’s Studies major at any UC campus, receiving a B.A. with honors in 1975 from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law (UC Berkeley) in 1980, and has specialized in domestic violence legal issues ever since. She has taught Domestic Violence Law at Boalt since 1988. She created a reader for the course, which was published in 1996 by Austin and Winfield and in 2001 and 2005 by West Group. Domestic Violence Law is the first published curriculum on this topic and is used in law schools around the US. She has also taught a Domestic Violence Practicum class at Boalt since approximately 1990.

While working at various nonprofit agencies around the San Francisco Bay Area from 1981 through 1993, she represented hundreds of battered women obtaining restraining orders, and advocated for them with the civil and criminal justice systems.

Ms. Lemon has worked on numerous pieces of state legislation, having been active with the Policy & Research Committee of the Ca. Alliance Against Domestic Violence since 1984. She was a board member of CAADV and the current statewide coalition, Ca. Partnership to End Domestic Violence, for many years.

She is the Associate Editor of Domestic Violence Report, a bimonthly national publication. She has published many books and articles in this field, including Child Custody and Domestic Violence with Drs. Peter Jaffe and Samantha Poisson (Sage, 2003), and Manual on Domestic Violence (first published by Ca. Women Lawyers Educational Foundation in 1996; newest edition is forthcoming from CPEDV).

Ms. Lemon has worked with other attorneys as a trial consultant, and testifies as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases on domestic violence issues.

Ms. Lemon has consulted with judges, legislators, and domestic violence advocates in Mongolia, and has spoken at international domestic violence or women’s conferences in Norway, Canada and China. She has consulted with bench officers and law enforcement officers from Japan. Former students of hers, including judges, have authored domestic violence legislation in Taiwan and Japan. One of these students is now teaching a domestic violence legal course in Taiwan.

Ms. Lemon has been a consultant to the Family Violence Prevention Fund and to the Ca. Center for Judicial Education and Research (CJER), writing curricula for prosecutors, new judges, and court employees. She authored Domestic Violence Cases in Criminal Court, a CJER benchbook for California judges, which is regularly updated. She has trained hundreds of judges, police officers, prosecutors, court employees, custody evaluators, mediators, social workers, and domestic violence advocates on domestic violence dynamics and laws.

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Publications (pdf)

In this Section

About the Director
How to Apply
Companion Seminar
Former Students
Impact of DVP
Internships
News
Photos
Student Writing