Professor Epstein has directed the Domestic Violence Clinic since 1993. She has been the Director of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Domestic Violence Clinic for more than 25 years, and served as Associate Dean for Experiential Learning from 2005-2012. She has spent decades advocating for the rights of survivors of domestic violence and has represented hundreds of women in civil protection order cases. She co-chaired the design and implementation of the DC Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Division, an early, model effort to restructure the way civil and criminal family abuse cases are handled. For five years, she served as Co-Director of the court’s Domestic Violence Intake Center. She served on the
NFL Players’ Association Commission on Violence
, and has served as Chair of the DC Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, Director of the Emergency Domestic Relations Project, and as a member of the DC Mayor’s Commission on Violence Against Women, the DC Superior Court Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors of the House of Ruth. Professor Epstein has trained hundreds of police officers, prosecutors, and judges around the country and internationally on domestic violence issues. In 2020, she was awarded the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Award
for professional excellence in women lawyers. She serves on D.C.’s Judicial Nominations Commission, helping to select judges to serve on the local courts.

Scholarship

Featured Scholarship

Lisa A. Goodman & Deborah Epstein, Loneliness and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Intimate Partner Violence Survivors, 37 J. Fam. Violence 767-774 (2022).
[SSRN]
Lisa A. Goodman, Deborah Epstein, Helen P. Hailes, Allison Slocum, Jonathan Wolff, Kelly Coyne & Amy McCraney, From Isolation to Connection: The Practices and Promise of Open Domestic Violence Shelters, 37 J. Interpersonal Violence (Special Issue) NP7315-NP7342 (2022).
[L]
Deborah Epstein, Discounting Credibility: Doubting the Stories of Women Survivors of Sexual Harassment, 51 Seton Hall L. Rev. 289-329 (2020).
[WWW] [Gtown Law] [HEIN] [W] [L] [SSRN]
Deborah Epstein & Lisa A. Goodman, Discounting Women: Doubting Domestic Violence Survivors' Credibility and Dismissing Their Experiences, 167 U. Pa. L. Rev. 399-461 (2019).
[WWW] [Gtown Law] [HEIN] [W] [L] [SSRN]
Lisa A. Goodman, Deborah Epstein & Cris M. Sullivan, Beyond the RCT: Integrating Rigor and Relevance to Evaluate the Outcomes of Domestic Violence Programs, 39 Am. J. Evaluation 58-70 (2018).
[Gtown Law] [SSRN]
Deborah Epstein & Lisa Goodman, The Impact of Domestic Violence on NFL Wives and Recommendations for Systemic Improvement (NFLPA Confidential Report, June 2016).

Deborah Epstein, Jane H. Aiken & Wallace J. Mlyniec, Teaching the Clinic Seminar (St. Paul, Minn.: West Academic 2014).

Lisa A. Goodman & Deborah Epstein, Listening to Battered Women: A Survivor-Centered Approach to Advocacy, Mental Health, and Justice (Wash., D.C.: American Psychological Association 2008).

[BOOK]

Deborah Epstein, Laurie Kohn et al., Litigating Civil Protection Order Cases: A Practical Manual (Wash., D.C.: Georgetown University Law Center/Women Empowered Against Violence (WEAVE) 2005, 2011).

[BOOK]