Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 4.0

Trauma-Informed Legal Advocacy: Medicolegal Approaches & Best Practices for Immigration Attorneys

Kimberly Morton Cuthrell

International Neuropsychiatric Disease Journal · pp. 62–74 · Published 31 Jul 2023

10.9734/indj/2023/v20i2394

Abstract

Trauma-informed legal advocacy is a compelling approach to utilize when attorneys represent traumatized individuals. Trauma-informed legacy advocacy in partnership with medicolegal approaches is a growing field within the medical and legal professions with theoretical underpinnings still developing. Excessive conflicts, trauma, persecution, human rights violations, and war across the globe are associated with an increased efflux of individuals and families from affected areas and an increased influx of people in host countries that are largely developed countries including North America, Australia, and Europe, making the role of immigration attorneys challenging. The traumatic experiences of these immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers with psychological or neuropsychiatric symptoms not only stem from past traumatic experiences but also are associated with potential fears of being deported, separated from family, legal ramifications, and residential uncertainties in host countries while harboring memories of suffering from fear of persecution due to nationality, race, religion, political opinion, affiliation in a social group, and sexual orientation in countries of origins. Though much of the literature on trauma-informed practice focuses on the secondary traumatic stress of medical professionals, little attention has been geared toward the secondary traumatic effects on attorneys. While the increasing demand for an immigration psychological evaluation may be beneficial for an immigration case and helps create an avenue for immigration attorneys to understand their clients’ traumatic experience, there is a gap in knowledge about how to limit attorneys’ exposure to secondary trauma when providing trauma-informed legal advocacy, how to identify malingering among clients, and how a client’s trauma and memory lapse interplay. This article discusses the importance of immigration attorneys understanding and utilizing trauma-informed legal advocacy, recognizing the re-traumatization of victims during legal appearances, the importance of an immigration psychological evaluation of a client, and developing routine self-care practices.

Trauma-informed legal advocacy immigration law immigration attorney immigration psychological evaluation neuropsychiatry medicolegal secondary traumatic stress

References (22)

  1. 1 European Journal of Psychotraumatology [DOI]
  2. 2 Human Trafficking [DOI]
  3. 3 Impact of asylum interviews on the mental health of traumatized asylum seekers [DOI]
  4. 4 Towards trauma-informed legal practice: a review [DOI]
  5. 5 Predictors of Secondary Traumatic Stress among Children's Advocacy Center Forensic Interviewers [DOI]
  6. 6 Impact of forensic medical evaluations on immigration relief grant rates and correlates of outcomes in the United States [DOI]
  7. 7 A Systematic Review of Medical-Legal Partnerships Serving Immigrant Communities in the United States [DOI]
  8. 8 Working With Refugees in the U.S.: Trauma-Informed and Structurally Competent Social Work Approaches [DOI]
  9. 9 Associations between memory loss and trauma in US asylum seekers: A retrospective review of medico-legal affidavits [DOI]
  10. 10 Immigrants and Refugees: The Psychiatric Perspective [DOI]
  11. 11 Feasibility of Integrating Mental Health Screening and Services Into Routine Elder Abuse Practice to Improve Client Outcomes [DOI]
  12. 12 Special considerations when conducting forensic psychological evaluations for immigration court [DOI]
  13. 13 Practical Steps to Integrate Family Voice in Organization, Policy, Planning, and Decision-Making for Socio-Emotional Trauma-Informed Integrated Pediatric Care [DOI]
  14. 14 Recognizing and Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Violence Among Resettled Refugees [DOI]
  15. 15 Patterns and evidence of human rights violations among US asylum seekers [DOI]
  16. 16 Trauma-Informed: Dependency Court Personnel’s Understanding of Trauma and Perceptions of Court Policies, Practices, and Environment [DOI]
  17. 17 Trauma-Informed Lawyering in The Asylum Process: Engagement and Practice in Immigration Law [DOI]
  18. 18 Negative reactions to the sexually abused victims, withdrawing the complaint and outcomes of the litigation: the first data from Turkey [DOI]
  19. 19 Vulnerability of displacement: Challenges for integrating refugees and asylum seekers in host communities
  20. 20 Journal of international migration and integration
  21. 21 Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health [DOI]
  22. 22 Proceedings of the 30th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction [DOI]

Cited by 0

No indexed citations yet.

Related research

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

38

Page views

0

PDF downloads

9

Outbound clicks

0

Citations

Views over time

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.