s Director of the Domestic Violence Law Clinic at the University of Arizona’s law school, Professor Negar Katirai L’05 has overseen dozens of order of protection cases for domestic violence victims. In her leadership role, she has also tried to systemically address, and thereby prevent, the cycle of violence she so often hears about from clients of her clinic.

While the clinic focuses on handling orders of protection, which includes witness and trial preparation for those cases, it also provides information, advice, and referrals regarding matters such as divorce, custody, landlord/tenant issues, harassment, and sexual assault.

In a notable endeavor, Katirai traveled to Australia last year as a Fulbright scholar to research the country’s approach to fatality reviews of domestic violence cases. The experience was an eye-opening lesson in how nationwide data can be used to potentially save lives through new policy.

The victims of domestic violence homicide, Katirai said, are overwhelmingly female. “The majority of domestic violence homicides are by men against women,” she said. “If you are a woman, it’s the greatest risk you face.”

Katirai, who was born in Iran and grew up in the United States, dreamed of working to promote international women’s rights when she arrived at Penn Carey Law. But a stint at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia early in her law career changed her focus.

“It opened my eyes to the fact that I love family law, especially with respect to survivors of domestic violence, and it spoke to my desire to address women’s rights,” she said.

Beginning Fall 2023, Katirai will be visiting at the European University Institute’s Migration Policy Institute.

That “perfect victim” one is challenging. People will say, “You never fought back; you should remember everything and be perfectly composed, perfectly respectful.” It’s not very realistic to expect that of anyone, let alone someone who has experienced a lot of trauma. Another one is “why didn’t you leave?” People don’t think of the economics of it, that a victim is often financially dependent on their abuser. They may have immigration status through an abuser or kids with an abuser. Abusers often prey on these vulnerabilities, which would be less if we as a society invested more in helping those less fortunate among us have access to jobs, housing, and education.

New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria, have a fatality review team housed at the coroner’s office. They look at every single homicide within their review period. They review every case, which is not happening on that kind of level in the United States. And they’re pulling out data trends. The teams have worked together, and they have developed a national dataset. Those types of datasets can provide you with information that you simply can’t get from anecdotes.

You can look at whether a protection order was in place, if child and family services were involved, did the abuser have access to firearms, has the abuser lost his job—we know losing economic security can precipitate domestic abuse. Did the victim try to leave? If you’re looking at the homicides in aggregate, you can pull out that data.

If you have a population that doesn’t feel comfortable contacting child and family services because they feel marginalized or have had bad experiences… they’re less likely to contact (helpful) agencies. One way to address that might be to do more with the community, but that’s challenging because you have to establish trust. … Certainly more investment in civil legal services would be very beneficial to survivors, and I think more broadly, so would social services in general. The social services budget over time has shrunk, and we know from research that those services—shelter, access to housing, economic stipends, funds to hold you over while you get stable, civil legal services to advance family law rights and parental rights—are key to establishing safety and security for survivors. Despite research showing these things are important, we as a society have not invested in them.