WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 2, 2013 — The American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Sexual Violence has selected attorney Nancy Lemon as the recipient of the 2013 Sharon L. Corbitt Award. The ABA Commission on Domestic Sexual Violence created this award in 2008 to recognize service by lawyers from all areas of practice, including nonprofits, large firms, solo practitioners, corporate counsel and judges, who demonstrate exemplary service to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and/or stalking, in the spirit of Sharon L. Corbitt. 

Corbitt was an active member of the American Bar Association for 25 years, serving as a member of the Commission on Domestic Violence from 2002-05 after completing her term as chair of the Family Law Section. In honor of her exemplary professional and personal contributions to victims of domestic violence throughout her career, this award recognizes a lawyer each year who embodies her spirit and dedication. 

Lemon’s efforts to increase access to justice and provide outstanding legal services for victims of domestic violence began in 1981, when, fresh out of law school, she became the first attorney in the domestic violence unit of the Alameda County Legal Aid Society in California. She later took positions as legal program coordinator for the Mid-Peninsular Support Network in Santa Clara County, legal advocacy program director at Battered Women’s Alternatives in Contra Costa County and staff attorney at the Family Violence Law Center in Berkeley. During this time, she worked primarily on securing restraining orders for high-risk survivors. 

Lemon has spent the last 20 years serving as an expert witness, often on a pro bono basis, for survivors of domestic violence in criminal law, family law, asylum, housing and welfare benefits cases. She has testified in more than 60 cases in courts across Northern California and has written expert reports in more than 100 cases, most of which settled before trial. Additionally, Lemon authored an expert witness affidavit in a landmark case on asylum and domestic violence in California that is now used in many other cases nationwide. 

In January 2012, Lemon helped co-found the Family Violence Appellate Project and is now the organization’s legal director. FVAP is the first nonprofit organization in California focused on providing appellate representation to survivors of domestic violence. Through FVAP, Lemon is working to provide access to justice to hundreds of survivors of domestic violence who would otherwise have no means to appeal their cases. 

In addition to her legal casework, Lemon has been a pioneer in the realm of domestic violence legislation. She was one of four individuals who wrote the 1983 Law Enforcement Response to Domestic Violence Act in California. This act mandates that every police department must have a general order on domestic violence; it compels law enforcement officers to undergo training on domestic violence; and it requires every police department to send monthly statistics to the attorney general on domestic violence. As a result of this act, there is now statewide data on domestic violence in California. 

Lemon was also the main author of Family Code Statutes 3011 and 3044. The former makes it mandatory for judges to consider domestic violence in custody decisions. Before this statute, a judge could choose not to consider documented domestic violence at all in awarding custody. Statute 3044 goes one step further, creating a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody to a batterer. It took seven years and five different bills to implement this statute. 

Lemon helped create California’s marital rape statute as well. Previously, marital rape was often charged as a misdemeanor rather than a felony (whereas nonmarital rape was always a felony) and probation was the likely punishment. Victims had to report the rape to law enforcement within a short period of time and their claims had to be corroborated in some way. As a result, it was almost impossible to get a conviction for marital rape. The legislation that Lemon helped see through makes marital rape a felony in all cases and does away with the requirements of early reporting and corroboration. 

She also worked to extend restraining orders from 90 days to one year and emergency protective orders to five court days or seven calendar days; to establish a right to separate mediation sessions in domestic violence cases; and to expand a state-sponsored confidential address program to enable more victims of domestic violence and stalking to qualify. 

In 1988, Lemon created and taught the first domestic violence law class in the country at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Twenty five years later, she is still teaching this class. She is also the author of the first textbook on domestic violence law, which is used both nationally and internationally. Lemon has received requests from law schools in China and Iran to translate and publish her book in these countries. 

In addition to teaching a basic course in domestic violence law, Lemon also teaches a domestic violence clinic at Berkeley Law. Through the clinic, she places students as law clerks with domestic violence legal services organizations across the Bay Area. Each week, students in the class meet to talk about their work and counsel each other through difficult and traumatic experiences. Lemon also uses the class time to teach students about professional responsibility in the realm of domestic violence law. She recently developed the first course materials on domestic violence law and professional responsibility. 

Her students have gone on to found and run domestic violence organizations, including the Family Violence Appellate Project and the California Habeas Project. One student went back to her home country, Taiwan, and implemented the country’s first domestic violence statute. Another is a juvenile court commissioner in Los Angeles who wrote the first bench guide for juvenile court judges on domestic violence. 

The award ceremony and reception is co-hosted by the ABA Commission on Domestic Sexual Violence, the ABA Section of Family Law and Arnold Porter LLC. The reception will take place during the ABA’s Annual Meeting from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 9, at the offices of Arnold Porter LLP, Three Embarcadero Center, Floor 7, Howard Conference Room, San Francisco. This event is open to the public. 

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