-: My name is Twazi Lorna Zen.
Everyone calls me Lorna.
I'm a supervising attorney
at the New York Legal Assistance Group,
in their domestic violence law unit.
A lot of the work that we do is with more isolated
immigrant communities.
Our unit speaks over 12 different languages
and so we work a lot with clients
who are not English-proficient,
who are new immigrants, and who may not really understand
the legal systems in both New York City
and in the country, particularly in terms of immigration.
A lot of people jump straight to the idea of physical abuse.
Hitting, shoving, threats of physical violence,
or sexual violence.
We see and train about a lot more than that.
In the city particularly, we see a lot of economic abuse
with partners or family members who try to control
someone through threats of intimidation,
withholding financial assistance, or forcing someone
to go work either without pay or then after getting paid,
turning over their entire paycheck.
There's a huge economic component to domestic violence.
Some come in just to know what their rights are.
They kind of wanna understand what's a New York law,
in terms of custody, in terms of divorce,
in terms of support.
Some wanna know an answer to a very specific question.
Like can I leave my husband?
Can I go back to my home country?
And then some are there because they're ready
to take a big step in their life,
whether that's filing for divorce,
whether that's separating from their partner.
Most of our clients, when they do want representation,
we then evaluate about whether or not, you know,
our organization can pick it up.
And we try to take all of their cases,
so they're not repeating their story,
having to relive their trauma
to multiple different attorneys.
If they need immigration assistance
and they have a domestic violence-based relief,
we do their applications as well, to USCIS.
If they want to get divorced, which in New York state,
unfortunately happens in a different courthouse
than family court, before a different judge.
We try to help them with that as well.