HUFFINGTON POST NEW YORK December 1, 2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-iwerks/genderbased-violence-has-_b_6250140.html
Gender-Based Violence Has No Place in New York City By Rebecca Iwerks, Anna Ognibene and Elisabeth Wickeri Jessica could have been your neighbor. She had three children. She balanced working and taking care of them with her husband, Simon. Slowly, Simon began to insert into their relationship a pattern of abuse. He tried to control her; he tried to limit her interactions with others; and he repeatedly threatened to harm the children. Jessica was scared for herself and her girls. When Jessica decided to apply for a restraining order, a judge agreed that Simon was a danger to Jessica and her children, and ordered that Simon stay away from Jessica, the girls, and her home. In violation of the restraining order, Simon came to Jessica’s home and snatched her three girls from the front yard. Jessica immediately and repeatedly called the police. The police told Jessica that she was being ridiculous and the girls were probably fine with their father. Instead of receiving protection from the police department, Jessica’s three girls were found shot to death in the back of their father’s truck. Jessica brought a case against the police department that went all the way up to the U.S.
Supreme Court. In Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), the Court found that the police were not obligated to protect Jessica and her girls because enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory and did not create an individual right to due process under the Constitution. In other words, the police officers had the discretion to act the way they did. Though few cases have received such high court attention, Jessica’s underlying story of abuse is not unique. In 2013, the New York City police department responded to an average of 765 domestic incidence reports a day. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that more than one in
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three women and more than one in four men in the United States will be raped, subjected to physical violence, and/or stalked by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. Our committees include members that represent hundreds of men and women, and girls and boys, throughout the city who suffer from gender-based violence each day. They are not all married to professional athletes or performers. They are your neighbors, your coworkers, your sisters and brothers.
to public safety, housing, employment and social welfare. These resolutions stand for the notion that the policies that guide these agencies—and the individuals who work there—should be aware that they are on the front lines of the fight against gender-based violence. Why? Because in many cases such violence is the motivating factor that brought someone to government services, and that violence needs to be addressed and prioritized as part of any long-term solution.
All people deserve to live a life free of genderbased violence, free from sexual and domestic violence. While the U.S. government has taken steps to address this problem, such as passage and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, it has not gone far enough. Three years ago, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (“IACHR”) decried the U.S. government’s failure to keep its citizens safe from gender-based violence, and outlined steps the federal and state governments could take to protect this human right. Last month, the IACHR heard testimony on the progress of those recommendations. Unfortunately, the report is bleak and little has changed on the federal level.
A recent article in the Times1 reveals telling statistics on domestic violence and its consequences: more than a quarter of all families in shelters cite abuse as the cause of their stay; 70% of the increase in public housing crime in the last three years is attributed to domestic violence; and citywide, domestic violence accounts for 40% of all felony assaults and 34% of rapes. As aptly described by Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, “It’s important for people to understand how domestic violence is touching every part of this city.”
Consequently, local governments can and are rising to the challenge by striving for all their citizens to live free from gender-based violence and its myriad consequences. Cities around the country, including Albany and Boston, have learned from Jessica’s story and passed resolutions that proclaim that gender-based violence is a human rights violation. These resolutions are grounded in the knowledge that a victim of gender-based violence can come into contact with multiple government agencies over time, addressing a variety of needs related
It is time for New York City to pass a resolution recognizing gender-motivated violence, such as domestic and sexual violence, as a human rights concern and declaring that freedom from gendermotivated violence is a fundamental human right. Such a resolution will give the city the impetus to coordinate responses to gender-based violence in a manner that all city agencies can adopt, as both a singular and a collective goal. It also sends a strong message that domestic and sexual violence are not an acceptable part of the great city where we live, and that we should do everything we can to protect people like Jessica and her children.
[1] Navarro, Mireya. “Domestic Violence Drives Up New York Shelter Population as Housing Options Are Scarce.” The New York Times. November 10, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/nyregion/domestic-violence-drives-up-new-york-shelter-population-as-housing-options-are-scarce.html
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Rebecca Iwerks
Elisabeth Wickeri
Member of the Domestic Violence Committee of the
Chair of the International Human Rights Committee of
New York City Bar Association
the New York City Bar Association; executive director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School
Anna Ognibene Chair of the Domestic Violence Committee of the New York City Bar Association; senior staff attorney at Her Justice
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GLAMOUR January 27, 2016
The Lawyers Who Help at-Risk Women Get Divorces By Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy Divorce is almost never a good experience—in addition to the emotional fallout, many women are thrust into uncomfortable and unfamiliar negotiations about money with little preparation. Some can afford lawyers or financial advisers, but low-income women and women who lack legal documentation are at risk for severe economic penalties because they don’t have access to legal counsel. A nonprofit in New York City is working to change that. The group, called Her Justice, works to place these cases with law firms who do pro bono work, so clients pay nothing at all for legal services. Her Justice works with women who fall within 200 percent of the federal poverty line in New York City. 85 percent of the clients are domestic violence survivors. Some 69 percent of the clients are mothers, and 25 percent of clients speak a language other than English and cannot access the legal system without an interpreter. The organization also helps with custody cases and orders of protection (restraining orders). “We meet a lot of women who, because of domestic violence or their immigration status, have no economic foothold in their marriage and no economic independence,” says Her Justice senior staff attorney Rachel Braunstein. “If they want to get alimony or share [their partner’s] pension, and
they have no attorney to help, there’s little chance of getting a settlement.” “With the kinds of families we work with, the husband’s pension may be the family’s only asset,” says Laura Israel Sinrod, a staff attorney at Her Justice. “Our clients would be wiped out completely by legal fees. These are elderly women, housewives, mothers, and women whose husbands may have left them for a new relationship. They may not have planned for life as a single woman—they’ve thought they would live at least in part off their husband’s pension. But there is no way to access that money without pro bono representation.” In the case of a marriage splitting up, Her Justice might be the only recourse available. “People really
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need divorces because of contentious, financial issues. In New York, there is no right to counsel on financial issues in a family law context,” explains Israel Sinrod. “The only time there is a right to counsel is if a parent is chronically not paying child support.”
“And we have clients who are forced to remain living with abusive husbands because they cannot afford housing, especially in New York City,” adds Braunstein. “We talk to more and more people who are living with abusive husbands and are secretly meeting with us.”
The consequences for a woman who can’t obtain a divorce because she can’t get a lawyer can be dire. “There are women who are going hungry in their own home because their husbands won’t give them money to buy food, women who are in arranged marriages and don’t even know their husbands, women who may only have access to public benefits through their husband,” says Israel Sinrod.
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NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL January 6, 2016
Judge Denies Inmate’s Bid for Marital Assets in Divorce By Joel Stashenko A man serving 40 years in state prison for raping his wife is not entitled to share her pension or any other marital asset in their divorce, a Brooklyn judge has determined. State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Sunshine said the 2011 rape and other acts of violence and abuse by “Terrance T.” represent a rare instance where “egregious conduct” by one spouse toward another exempts the offending spouse from receiving any share of assets under equitable distribution. Sunshine wrote that in a “civilized society,” the behavior of Terrance T. must be considered a bar under state Domestic Relations Law §236(B)(5) and §236(B)(6) to his receiving any marital assets from wife “Alice M.”
“The plaintiff, despite all she endured, compounded by the defendant’s steadfast attempt to interfere in her desire to move on, has displayed both courage and perseverance beyond what any human being should have to endure, and so is noted by this court,” Sunshine wrote in Alice M. v. Terrance T., 2015 NY Slip Op 51913(U). Sunshine granted Alice M.’s request for a divorce due to an irretrievable breakdown in the relationship for at least six months and denied Terrance T.’s
counterclaim for divorce based on cruel and inhuman treatment. Sunshine also denied Terrance T.’s request for maintenance and attorney fees. Terrance T.’s counterclaim, Sunshine wrote, was based largely on his contention that his wife falsely accused him of domestic violence and rape because Alice M. was supposedly jealous about his relationship with another woman. Terrance T., who was pro se, also asked specifically for Sunshine to grant him one-half the value of various household possessions of the couple, including a living room set, a bedroom set and a television, plus attorney’s fees and a percentage of Alice M.’s retirement benefits. Sunshine rejected all requests for relief, saying Terrance T. could not use the divorce proceeding to re-try the rape charge for which he was already convicted. The judge also said the evidence suggests long years of physical and mental abuse against Alice
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M. before the attack that led to Terrance T.’s rape conviction, including attacks that caused Alice M. to lose jobs and prompted her to repeatedly file domestic incident reports against her husband.
(2010), that conduct by one abusive spouse may be “outrageous or conscious-shocking” enough to be a valid factor for consideration as a factor in a divorce court’s consideration of asset distribution.
“This court finds that defendant’s testimony was not credible,” Sunshine wrote. “Defendant attempted to utilize this proceeding to attack his prior conviction. The court finds defendant’s attempts to do so inappropriate and a malicious and vexing attempt to cause plaintiff further emotional distress.”
Sunshine said Alice M. v. Terrance T. presents just such a “truly exceptional situation” as described in Howard S.
Sunshine also said that Terrance T., often living in shelters or elsewhere outside of the home, did not contribute toward the couple’s living expenses for most of their marriage, and that Alice M.’s $35,000-a-year job at a city agency was the only gainful employment that the couple enjoyed.
He added, “Without a doubt, defendant’s rape of plaintiff during the marriage … and his subsequent conviction of rape in the first degree unequivocally evidences that defendant callously imperiled the value our society places on human life and the integrity of the human body.”
Sunshine said that, as a general rule, Domestic Relations Law and court precedent prevent marital fault from being a “just and proper” consideration in determining equitable distribution of marital property. But the judge wrote that, in a case generally regarded as the most important precedent in the Appellate Division, Second Department—Blickstein v. Blickstein, 99 AD2d 287 (2nd Dept. 1984)—the court found that there are rare cases where one spouse engaged in such “egregious” conduct against another spouse that it should factor into equitable distribution decisions. Sunshine said other courts have affirmed that reasoning, including the state Court of Appeals, which found in Howard S. v. Lillian S., 14 NY 3d 431
“If the court has ever been presented with facts and circumstances demonstrating egregious conduct by one spouse against another spouse it is the case at bar,” Sunshine wrote.
Sunshine noted that the available resources in the marriage subject to equitable distribution are minimal and is a reflection, in part, of the husband’s failure to contribute to the financial well-being of the couple and their children. Alice M.’s statement of assets, in fact, showed about $35,000 in debts with her only appreciate assets being a 401k account and a modest vested pension valued at $18,000, Sunshine said. Stephanie Baez and Anna Ognibene of Her Justice represented Alice M. Terrance T. is incarcerated in Clinton Correctional Facility, the judge said.
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NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL January 13, 2016
Pro Bono Makes All the Difference in Family Matters Laura Israel Sinrod Justice Jeffrey Sunshine’s moving, landmark decision in Alice M. v. Terrance T. is about more than the impact of egregious conduct on the equitable distribution of the marital portion of a city worker’s pension; it is also about access to economic justice and the right to counsel (“Judge Denies Inmate’s Bid for Marital Assets in Divorce,” NYLJ, Jan. 6). Had it not been for pro bono representation, plaintiff Alice M. might have had to share her only asset, a modest retirement account, with a man who brutally and repeatedly raped, assaulted and terrorized her. Article 18-b of the County Law entitles lowincome parties to free, court-appointed counsel in custody and family offense matters, but there is no such right on economic issues like equitable distribution, maintenance, and spousal support (unless a person is at risk of incarceration for continual nonpayment of child support). All over the country, including New York, individuals stay in abusive relationships because they cannot pay for an attorney who would enable them to receive the financial settlement that is rightfully theirs under well-settled family law; more simply put, they cannot afford to leave their abuser.
In addition to representing some clients directly, my organization, Her Justice (formerly known as inMotion), pairs indigent women in family law, matrimonial, and immigration cases with pro bono counsel from the most prestigious (and expensive) law firms in the city. I am often asked, what could possibly be at stake financially in an indigent person’s divorce? Pension and retirement plans are a common marital asset among low-income families, and child support is essential to children’s well-being, and is often difficult to calculate when the noncustodial parent works off the books. Many of our clients are survivors of domestic violence who have been financially disempowered
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for decades and now, after raising their children and taking care of a household, find themselves without work history, marketable skills, savings, or any hope of financial security without a fair divorce settlement. It is not feasible for low bono, sliding scale, or contingency fee attorneys to handle these types of cases because even modest attorneys fees can completely wipe out the financial settlement due to the client. Pro bono representation is the only path to economic justice for these individuals.
We hope that even non-matrimonial practitioners will read Justice Sunshine’s heartfelt decision to appreciate the challenges facing indigent parties in matrimonial and family law matters; we can all do our part to expand pro bono representation to deserving clients like Alice M. Laura Israel Sinrod The author is a staff attorney at Her Justice
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SLATE.COM / JURISPRUDENCE http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/02/domestic_violence_protection_victims_ need_civil_courts_and_lawyers.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru
February 19, 2015
Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence ONE THING THEY REALLY NEED IS LAWYERS.
By Amy Barasch Her Justice executive director and the former director of the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence.
The 2014 New York City domestic violence homicide report 1 reveals that fewer than a third of the people killed by their partners had ever called the police. This sort of statistic is pretty common across similar types of studies 2 and builds on research that suggests that fewer than half 3 of all domestic violence victims ever call the police. One reasonable reaction to this data is to encourage more victims to call the police for help. And we do. But that’s not the only or best solution for everyone. We should also educate the public that there is an entirely different system that can provide safety, protect children, and offer solutions not found in criminal courts.
Victims of partner violence almost always need things that the criminal court can’t provide, like money, housing, and a guarantee not to be separated from their children.
Listening to domestic violence victims for more than a dozen years as a family court lawyer, director of domestic violence programs, head of the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, and now executive director of a nonprofit that represents victims of partner violence, I have heard again and again that many
Photo by LoloStock/Shutterstock
of the victims need a lawyer. Not for criminal court, but for civil court. Even though many or most victims do not call the police, domestic violence, more accurately called
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intimate partner violence, is so widespread that it is still the most common kind of assault call that police receive. In New York City, an average of 29 domestic violence calls come in every hour. If an arrest is made, criminal charges are filed. That’s what people usually think about when they think about intimate partner violence. But more than half of all victims do not call the police, in some cases because they do not want what the criminal court has to offer. They may not want the parent of their children jailed, for fear of retaliation or because they want safety but not retribution. Or they may want incarceration, but not deportation, which can be the result if the violent person is foreign-born. Prosecutors and courts are only part of the answer. Civil courts
offer resources to victims of domestic violence as vital as food and housing.
Victims of partner violence almost always need things that the criminal court can’t provide. Safety is of course paramount but so is having enough money for food and housing, not getting separated from their children, and living a secure life on their own. Criminal court is not designed to address those needs. Family court is. In New York State, family court can issue orders of protection with the same force and effect as criminal orders. People can go into court without a police report and ask for help. They can also file for child support, custody, or visitation in family court, and the judge is required to consider evidence of domestic violence when making an
award. Every state has a civil court system like New York’s. In short, our civil courts offer resources to victims of domestic violence as vital as food and housing. But 80 percent of people in our civil courts do not have a lawyer, and they have to navigate the complicated court system alone. Criminal defendants have a right to a lawyer because they face the loss of their liberty. Victims of domestic violence often face the loss of their children or other hardships, but they may be on their own. Our civil courts are designed to enable people to ask for help without lawyers—they were intended to be the poor person’s court, after all—but often they are unable to help without a professional intermediary. Even in states that grant the right to a lawyer in a custody case, there are not enough lawyers to meet the need. There is no right to a lawyer in child support matters, even though receiving an appropriate award can literally mean the difference between having food and shelter or not—child support awards represent 40 percent of many poor women’s income. Reports that have studied the lack of “access to justice” in New York 4 and elsewhere 5 find that domestic violence victims in our family courts are among the worst off. To truly help victims of intimate partner violence, we need more legal aid and volunteer lawyers to take their cases. When child support is awarded, dangerous relationships can be ended. Victims who get orders of protection in civil court are more likely to take other safety seeking measures
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and express more satisfaction with the system than those in criminal court. Abusive partners are often abusive litigants, dragging court cases on for months or years. Lawyers can shift the power to their clients. We need practical solutions for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. There are
more than 13 times as many private attorneys for those who can pay as there are free attorneys for those who cannot. We need more funding for civil legal services and more support for private attorneys who volunteer their time. For many victims of intimate partner violence, lawyers can be a lifesaver.
1) New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, “New York City Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee: 2014 Annual Report,” accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.nyc.gov/html/ocdv/downloads/pdf/Statistics_9th_ Annual_Report_Fatality_Review_Committee_2014.pdf.
2) Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence Fatality Review, “Issue Brief: Where did domestic violence victims turn for help?,” June 2013, accessed February 19, 2014, http://dvfatalityreview.org/2013/06/28/issuebrief-where-did-domestic-violence-victims-turn-for-help-2/.
3) National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, “Practical Implications of Currrent Domestic Violence Research: For Law Enforcement, Prosecutors and Judges,” June 2009, accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/ intimate-partner-violence/practical-implications-research/ch2/pages/extent-reported.aspx.
4) The Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services in New York, “Report to the Chief Judge of the State of New York,” November 2014, accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.nycourts.gov/ip/access-civil-legal-services/PDF/CLS%20TaskForce%20 Report%202014.pdf.
5) Carrie Johnson, National Public Radio, The Two-Way, “Rights Advocates See ‘Access To Justice’ Gap In U.S.,” March 10, 2014, accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/10/288225649/rights-advocates-see-accessto-justice-gap-in-u-s.
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PHOTO DISTRICT NEWS July 2011 By David Walker Researched by PDN staff
Benefit Analysis: Pros and Cons of Donating to Charity The next day he got a call from someone Toronto gallerist Stephen Bulger used to donate interested in buying a print that sold for photographic prints to charity auctions without $300 at the auction. It was worth $1,500, Bulger giving much thought, until several years ago says, not including the $250 frame he had put on it. when a well-known international humanitarian Balking at the gallery price, the caller asked Bulger organization approached him for a donation “and to notify him the next time the photographer I really started getting bad vibes,” he recalls. The donated to another charity auction. auction didn’t seem well planned, and Bulger feared the sale prices would be too low. So he offered to donate money instead. Stephen Bulger advises his artists against
donating smaller prints. “A donation should always be a bona fide piece of art,” he says. © Will Ragozzino/PatrickMcMullan.com
“Whatever the artist makes, that’s what they should donate.”
Denise Bethel of Sotheby’s leads the bidding for a private portrait commission by Bob Gruen at inMotion’s Annual Photography Auction & Benefit in April. The commission sold for $20,000.
The organizers then went directly to eight of his artists for donations, six of them agreed to donate prints. The auction was a flop. “It was really badly attended and no one there could really afford to buy anything,” Bulger says.
Since then, Bulger has “clamped down” on such donations, as have other gallery owners for similar reasons. They want to support charities, but not to their own detriment, so they are more selective about the charity auctions they donate to, and impose more conditions on those donations. And at least some charities have responded by improving their Gallery owner Stephen auction results, Bulger.
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to keep donations from drying up. The solicitations certainly abound. “There are so many benefit auctions. I have two [solicitation] letters sitting on my desk right now from great organizations,” says Brian Clamp of ClampArt Gallery in New York. Art auctions can be an
“We donate work to those charities with whom we have relationship in an effort to
York gallery owner. For her, the decision boils down to a photographer’s commitment to a given cause, in the case of non-arts organizations, or the photographer’s relationship with the arts organization making the request. Not surprisingly, arts organizations lean heavily for donations on photographers whose work and careers they have supported. (Galleries resent requests from organizations that have
aid their cause,” says gallery owner Yancey Richardson, “but by no means do I think about it in terms of publicity.” effective way for non-profits to raise money, he explains, “So a lot have popped up.” They tend to fall into two categories: those sponsored by arts organizations—Aperture, Center for Photography at Woodstock, and George Eastman House are three examples— and those sponsored by non-arts organizations providing humanitarian or social services. One of the most successful in that category, says Clamp, is inMotion, a New York-based charity that provides free legal aid to low-income victims of domestic abuse. Gallerists interviewed for this story reported that requests for auction prints from the arts organizations outnumber those from non-arts groups by about two to one. The challenge is to figure which requests to honor. “There are many, many worthwhile causes. We can’t realistically respond to all [of them],” says Yancey Richardson, another New
Gallery owner Yancey Richarson.
never supported their artists, by the way.) Arts organizations assert that their charity auctions can help emerging photographers in particular. “It’s good exposure for them,” says Yseult Chehata, manager of the individual giving program at the Aperture Foundation. She says unsolicited offers to donate prints to Aperture’s auctions (one silent, one live) are on the rise because of their newly established emerging artist silent auction, and because of the relationships Aperture has built over the years with artists and galleries.
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Ariel Shanberg, executive director of the Center for Photography at Woodstock, says CPW’s annual auction is a chance for Gallery owner Brian Clamp. photographers who have been supported by the center to be “generous and give back.” But they also benefit because the auction effectively markets them to a collecting audience. Gallery owner Julie Saul. The relationships established between collectors and the contributing photographers “can continue for years afterwards,” he says. Gallery owners are more skeptical about the benefits. For one thing donating prints to benefit auctions makes for a lousy tax write off: photographers can deduct only the value of the materials, not the market value of their donated prints. And benefit auctions sponsored by non-arts organizations do nothing to promote an artist’s career, according to New York gallery owner Julie Saul, so the decision comes down to the quality of the auction and the artist’s belief in the cause. (She does allow, however, that prestigious and well-run auctions sponsored by art organizations can help.) Gallerists also say that while print donations
occasionally drive collectors into their galleries after an auction, it doesn’t amount to a significant amount of new business. “Even at the auctions that are specifically geared to art collectors, they buy a piece they like, and it ends there. Is this someone who is going to come to the artist’s next show? It’s difficult to say,” says Paul Kopeikin, an L.A. gallery owner. “I do not view it as a source of publicity. It’s actually a great deal of work for us. We have to discuss what image, what size, what print, who
Fire sale prices are a hazard at benefit auctions. “It happens all the time,” says Brian Clamp. “When we donate, 95 percent of the time the work sells below retail price.”
is going to frame it, how to value it, etc., etc,.” Richardson says. “We donate work to those charities with whom either the gallery or the artist has a relationship in an effort to aid their cause but by no means do I think about it in terms of publicity.” What concerns gallery owners the most, though, is the potential damage to their business and a photographer’s reputation if prints end up selling at benefit auctions for what amount to fire sale prices. “It happens all the time,” Clamp says. “When we donate, 95 percent of the time the work sells below the retail price.” And when a print worth $2,000 sells for $600 at a benefit auction—a
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not uncommon occurrence, he says—it can leave potential buyers confused about the actual value of the print, and the prices the galleries charge.
© Phil Bergerson/Courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery.
Another problem for gallerists is that benefit auctions have turned into a bargain hunting circuit for many collectors. “I find that at the auctions that are benefiting arts organizations, people are just looking for bargains, and at the [auctions for] nonarts organizations they tend to want to support the organization and are much more generous in what they pay,” Saul observes. And Shanberg
The Stephen Bulger Gallery donated this Phil Bergerson print, “Untitled, Martinsville, Indiana, 2006,” to Unmasked 2011 CAMH foundation.
concedes that collectors see benefit auctions such as CPW’s as a way to get photographic prints at what he calls a “more accessible rate”—i.e., less that they would pay at a gallery. How much that actually hurts the gallery business is impossible to say, but it’s a business in which the perceived value means everything. Gallery owners
and photographers certainly don’t want to turn their backs on worthy causes, though, so they’ve devised strategies to ensure that their donations do as little damage to their business and their photographers’ market value as possible. An obvious rule of thumb is to avoid overexposure. “The list of charities one decides to support should be small,” says David Fahey, of Fahey Klein Gallery in New York. Donate too often, he warns, and your work can start to look stale, and you run the risk of looking too desperate to have your work seen. (Kopeikin also warns against donating to museum benefits in hope they’ll support your work and career because of your contribution. “Have no illusions,” he says.) Another strategy is to impose a reserve or minimum price on donated prints. Some gallerists set a reserve at 50 percent of the print’s market value, but Fahey asks for 75 percent, to avoid the perception that your work can be had at half price. Chehata, of Aperture, says artists and galleries often ask for a reserve, and Aperture accepts it, but tries to make sure the reserve doesn’t exceed 50 percent of the value of the piece. Their primary interest, after all, is in making a sale. Yet another increasingly popular strategy is to create special editions just for donation to benefit auctions. Yancey Richardson and Brian Clamp are both adherents to this approach. “I prefer my artists to do special benefit editions that aren’t available through the gallery,” Clamp says. The special edition prints tend to be smaller, so collectors who happen to see a particular print fetch $500 at a
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benefit auctions aren’t so confused if they see a larger version on a gallery wall for $2,000.
Instead, he protects himself and his artists by carefully vetting the organizations that solicit the prints. For instance, he takes note of who is on the auction committee “to see if it is comprised of people who know people who would probably bid on stuff. Because if there is an absence of that then I find that work doesn’t do very well,” Bulger explains.
Stephen Bulger advises his artists against donating smaller prints. “A donation should always be a bona fide piece of art,” he says. © Rachel Perry Welty / Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery
“Whatever the artist makes, that’s what they should donate.”
Rachel Perry Welty’s print “Lost in My Life (boxes), 2009,” was donated to the Kitchen’s benefit in 2010.
But Bulger advises his artists against donating smaller prints. “I think [a donation] should always be a bona fide piece of art. Whatever it is that the artist makes, that’s what they should donate,” he says.
He also asks organizers how many people will be attending the auction, and how many lots will be offered for sale. Bulger figures that only ten percent of auction attendees are actually interested in bidding seriously for something. He prefers to see the number of bidders outnumber the action lots by a ration of two-to-one, to ensure bidding competition Ariel Shanberg of Center for and higher prices, he Photography at Woodstock. explains. “So I try to suss out from the organizers how organized (and how experienced) they actually are before I donate any prints,” he says. For her part, gallery owner Julie Saul donates
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only if auction organizers agree in writing to disclose after the auction how much each print she donated sold for, and to whom. “Particularly if it’s a unique work, you want to know where it is, and secondly you want to know what it sold for to evaluate, for example, if you want to donate to the cause in the future,” she explains. Some charities, at least, are getting the message. “We are not doing our job as a not-for-profit photography space if we are not cultivating an audience to pay a respectable price,” says CPW’s Shanberg. CPW auction organizers noticed several years ago that galleries were encouraging artists to create special editions for donation in response to the lousy benefit auction prices. So starting in 2007, CPW cut its benefit auction lots by 75 percent, from 200 to about 50. In addition, CPW has boosted efforts to educate auction attendees about the photographers represented, their work, and why it is of value. The result, Shanberg says, is that CPW has to solicit far fewer donations, and auction sale prices are much higher than they previously were. (CPW doesn’t publicize those prices, however.) Aperture also promotes the work donated for its auctions, and limits the number of lots according to audience size, Chehata says. “We want each piece to get enough attention.” She adds that Aperture held back some lots last year because they received more donations than they wanted to include given the auction’s attendance.
InMotion, which has run one of the most successful benefit photo auctions since 1996, is the model of a well-oiled benefit auction machine. InMotion’s board of directors is packed with highpowered New York attorneys and investment bankers, who work their connections to draw a large, well-heeled crowd to the annual auction. InMotion’s auction co-chairs include a collector and a New York gallery owner (Robert Mann) with the knowledge and connections to bring in works by big-name photographers that the auction audience are likely to recognize and appreciate. “We take a something-for-everyone approach, featuring works that appeal to both seasoned and beginning collectors,” says Carol Lindley, inMotion’s senior director of development and marketing. (The most recent auction, held in April, included works by William Wegman, Mitch Epstein, Ruth Orkin, and Nicholas Nixon, among others.) The lots are limited—only 25 or 27 down from about 40 in previous years, according to Lindley. And the auctioneer since the first event in 1996 has been Denise Bethel, senior VP and director of the photography department at Sotheby’s, who knows as well as any auctioneer how to whip up the bidding. The result is that inMotion auction prices almost always exceed the gallery prices for the works sold, and frequently amount to “several multiples” of the gallery prices, Lindley says. Moreover, inMotion arranges to have the prints framed, so the galleries and artists don’t have to
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pay those costs. And after the event, print donors are informed of sales prices, as well as buyer’s contact information. “Our goal is to help galleries and photographers build new relationships with collectors,” Lindley says. But the ultimate measure of the auction’s success? Artists and galleries clamor to get their work into the auction, putting inMotion in the enviable position of having to turn down offers of some high-caliber work. No doubt many would-be donors support inMotion’s mission. But certainly they’re also eager for the rarest of opportunities: a chance to be part of a benefit auction where the bidding is so intense that the gavel prices actually exceed their gallery prices.
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NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL October 28, 2014
Finding Interpreters Poses Challenge for State Courts By Christine Simmons Six times a New York City woman appeared in Family Court to get an order of protection against her ex-partner. Four of those six times her case was adjourned because an interpreter wasn’t there to translate a language from Sri Lanka for her adversary. Finally, she gave up.
“She felt like it just wasn’t worth it to her to keep having to go to court, prepare for court and confront somebody who had been abusive in the past,” said Susanna Saul, a supervising attorney at Her Justice. “We felt we had somehow let her down. We represented that this court system was going to [help] her.” The woman’s plight highlights what many attorneys say is a significant problem in state courts—the difficulty of finding interpreters when the number of those working full time for the state has been trimmed and per diem interpreters are often unavailable or delayed. In Saul’s order of protection case, the state’s sole interpreter who speaks Sinhalese was not available for the proceedings. M. Audrey Carr, director of immigration and special programs at Legal Services
Court interpreter Edward Luk in Manhattan Civil Court NYLJ/Rick Kopstein
NYC, called the case “a pretty egregious example” of delays caused by the interpreter shortage, “but not uncommon, unfortunately.” There are about 270 staff interpreters on the OCA payroll, down from 335 in 2009, according to Ronald Younkins, executive director for the state’s Office of Court Administration. In an interview, Younkins said the lower head count is largely due to staff retiring or leaving for other positions. He said five interpreters were laid off in 2011 due to lack of court funds but were later rehired. He said the court system hasn’t been able to fill all of the open positions because its operating
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budgets have been flat and it has had mandatory increased costs in other areas, such as salary increases. However, he said the court was in the process of hiring nine interpreters, and that providing interpreting services remains “a very high priority” for the court system.
“It’s an access to justice issue,” he said. “People have to be able to understand what is going on during their procedures. The reduction in court interpreters has been a challenge, but we’ve tried to meet that with increased use of per diem [interpreters].” The court system spent $6.5 million to pay for per diem interpreters in 2013—$1 million more than it spent in 2009. There are currently about 500 per diem interpreters available. “That has significantly helped to fill the gap,” Younkins said. “They give you the flexibility to put people exactly where you need them. He said the court system also is providing interpreters for more languages—106 this year, up from 95 in 2009. New languages include Burmese and Karen, a language spoken in Myanmar. But some attorneys said that the state’s efforts have fallen short. Carr recalled one woman fighting for custody of her children has had her case adjourned four times since September 2012 because a Bengali interpreter was not available. “Our family law attorneys routinely report back to us they’re having a lot of issues with interpreters.
It’s interpreters not showing, not being available,” and sometimes poor quality of interpretation in languages other than Spanish, said Carr, a member of the Advisory Committee on Court Interpreting for OCA. Michael Grinthal, a supervising attorney at MFY Legal Services, recounted an eviction case a few years ago in which a Spanish-speaking tenant with a medical condition waited all day for an interpreter in Brooklyn Housing Court. She eventually had to leave as she was in pain, and her case defaulted. A Brooklyn legal services provider later got the default vacated, but Grinthal said the example shows how such delays can make a client vulnerable.
“They longer they wait, the more likely they are to sign anything put in front of them,” he said. In-demand court interpreters often have to go from one court to another in the same day. Barbara Graves-Poller, another supervising attorney at MFY Legal Services, said attorneys and their clients sometimes have to wait hours, or longer, for an interpreter to arrive. “Our clients cannot afford to take time off from work, don’t have readily available child care and don’t have transportation,” she said. “Whenever there are delays, it disadvantages them personally.” For a litigant with a particular Chinese or African dialect, a case can be put over for a month while an interpreter is sought, said Sateesh Nori, attorney in charge of civil practice at the Legal Aid Society in Queens.
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“If the case is delayed,” he said, “any settlement, any negotiation leverage they might have early in the case may disappear. The landlord is often frustrated and they hold it against the tenant. But it’s not their fault the court couldn’t provide adequate interpretation.” In cases involving non-Spanish interpreters, “you get a lot of adjournments and you have to wait around,” said Carlos Perez-Hall, who represents landlords at Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler, Nahins & Goidel. “It’s frustrating because what you have is a situation where people who don’t speak English are put at a disadvantage.” Sheryl Karp, supervising attorney at Legal Aid Society’s Harlem Community Law Offices, said Legal Aid attorneys requested an interpreter for three separate settlement conferences for a Japanese-speaking tenant facing eviction. Each time, a Japanese interpreter wasn’t available, and Karp had to call a private language line to provide interpretation. Karp said if her client was pro se, as are about 90 percent of litigants are in the city’s Housing Court, “she would have come three times for nothing.” Manhattan Housing Court Judge Sabrina Kraus, who is president of the Housing Court Judges Association, said the Bronx is particularly vulnerable, as it has a large number of landlordtenant cases and some of the poorest tenants. “In some cases, the litigant will try to persuade you to proceed without an interpreter,” Kraus said. “If they’re settling a lawsuit, it’s very important that they understand 100 percent.”
Saul, whose client abandoned her quest for an order of protection, said Her Justice attorneys submitted a complaint to the court about the experience, prompting an apology from the Office of Court Interpreting Services, which acknowledged that the interpreter’s failure to appear was a breach of ethical rules. “We felt they had responded appropriately,” Saul said. “It was clear they took this very seriously.”
CHANGING NEEDS New York’s foreign-born population edged up to 3 million in 2011—a new peak—from 2.9 million in 2000, according to city figures. Fast-changing demographic shifts make it more difficult for the court to respond to demand, Nori said, pointing to Queens in particular. “While today we might be prepared for Hindi, tomorrow we’d need Bengali because the neighborhood has changed,” she said. “To be fair, the court has done a decent job in trying to meet these demands, but I’m not sure they have the budget to really keep up with the changing face of Queens.” Sandra Bryan, coordinator for Court Interpreting Services at OCA, which sets policies on the court interpreting, said her office has noticed more requests for languages in Central and South America and from Africa, and it is addressing a rising demand for interpreters in central and upstate New York through a remote interpreting video program.
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One challenge is finding qualified interpreters. Bryan said 30 to 40 percent of candidates fail written tests, often failing basic grammar skills. For those who do pass, only one in four succeed in a required oral exam. “I would like more people to pass,” she said.
Edward Luk, a Mandarin and Cantonese staff interpreter at the Manhattan Civil Court building at 111 Centre St., said he has been asked to work in other courthouses since 2012, when a Chineselanguage interpreter retired and was not replaced. Luk said this sometimes delays responding to requests in Civil Court.
There are some languages for which no standard oral exam exists, and the office has to test interpreters “to a degree that makes us comfortable in sending them to a courtroom,” Bryan said.
Still, Luk said he’s usually able to handle a second competing request for his interpreting services without a long delay.
The starting salary for staff interpreters is about $52,000, Bryan said.
“There are numerous unforeseen circumstances,” such as walk-in litigants who need directions, he said. “How can I leave the courtroom and help this person?”
Per diem interpreters are not employees of the court system. They are paid $250 for a full day and $140 for a half day of work. “We can’t make people materialize. They’re independent contractors,” Bryan said.
“Of course it would help” to have more interpreters, he said, but noted, “we are always doing the best we can with what we know. We cannot staff for unknowns.”
Younkins, the OCA official, said the court does not have figures to indicate how often cases are adjourned because an interpreter is not available. However, he said the court system takes “appropriate action” when a per diem interpreter fails to appear, such as possibly removing the person from a call list.
Younkins said the court is expanding availability of language lines in courthouses, which are telephone services at self-help centers and other points in courthouses. The state also plans to roll out bilingual orders of protection within a month in a few locations, with the ultimate goal of having them statewide, he said.
Bryan said she does not believe adjournments due to absent interpreters happen frequently.
HALLWAY NEGOTIATIONS
“It would be foolish of me to say we never have an adjournment,” she said. “What’s better: to send an unqualified person, or to tell the judge we have no one?”
In Housing Court, many cases are settled in the hallway, where interpreters are needed but not required.
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“Everything really happens in the hallway,” Grinthal said. “That’s where you talk about the case. That’s where the lawyers give you the agreement you’re supposed to sign. And what often happens is that people just make due when they don’t have an interpreter.” Bryan said interpreters are allowed to help negotiations in hallways, but often can’t because they are needed in a courtroom. Meanwhile, attorneys report a large variance in interpretation quality. In one MFY case where the client was seeking a temporary order of guardianship for her grandchild in Bronx Family Court, the client said the child’s teeth were rotting and the child was in need of extreme, urgent care. But the interpreter only said, “he really needs help, he has a lot of problems,” Graves-Poller said.
unrepresented and you don’t speak English, and the only person you relate to is the interpreter, the litigant may ask the interpreter, ‘What should I do?’” Nori said. Attorneys have also complained of interpreter bias, especially in close communities where interpreters are more likely to know one of the litigants, Graves-Poller said. Attorneys sometimes tell judges about bias and poor interpretation quality, but that information often doesn’t get back to the court system employing the interpreters, she said. Sometimes lawyers say judges are to blame. Graves-Poller said she has heard of judges who begin a proceeding without waiting for an interpreter, and judges who question the need for an interpreter after hearing a litigant speak some English.
Nori said interpreters sometimes give legal advice to litigants, which is forbidden. “If you’re
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