Joan S. Meier, Esq.

 Joan Meier is a Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School where she has taught three different domestic violence legal clinics, two of which were award-winning. 

 In 2004 she also launched, directed and led the litigation at the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DV LEAP), where she litigated hundreds of appeals, trained judges, lawyers and experts and advocates, and developed valuable technical assistance resources for the domestic violence field.  Professor Meier's primary focus has been on survivors and protective parents in custody litigation, and she has published widely on those topics.  In 2019 she completed a 5-year empirical study of the nation's family court outcomes in custody cases involving abuse and alienation allegations.  In 2020 she stepped down from DV LEAP and launched the National Family Violence Law Center at GW.  Through the Center she is furthering her research, scholarship, and legislative and appellate work to improve the legal system's response to cases concerning adult and child victims of family violence.  

Selected Publications:

Meier, Joan S., U.S. child custody outcomes in cases involving parental alienation and abuse allegations: what do the data show?, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 42:1, 92-105, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/09649069.2020.1701941

Meier, Joan S., Dangerous Liaisons: Social Science and Law in Domestic Violence Cases (February 2, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3004176 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3004176