After the Rhode Island Commission on Women (RICW) recently unveiled its Legal Rights Handbook for Rhode Island Women, RICW Chair Jane Anthony recalled with bemusement the project's prosaic beginnings. She had returned from a 1999 meeting of the New England Coalition of Commissions on Women with a copy of Vermont's legal guidebook for women and the inspiration to develop something similar here. "I started by passing the book around to neighborhood friends," Anthony recalls. Those friends were former state Representative Mary Levesque, who died last year, and Paula Rosin, a lawyer with the public defender's office; their enthusiasm convinced Anthony to float the idea before members of the commission, who qualified their own enthusiasm with a practical question: did Rhode Island need such a resource?

To answer that, the commission surveyed providers of health and social services to women. The responses convinced them that a clearly written legal guide for women was warranted.

As contributor Deb DeBare, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, explains, "A woman comes to us due to violence, but in unraveling her story we find issues way beyond it: child care, custody, housing, literacy, employment, immigration status, and nearly always economics. A woman trying to leave a battering relationship is often overwhelmed by the interrelated unknowns that lie ahead. Yet while women's lives have become more complicated, advocates have become more specialized -- a shelter worker knows domestic violence law, but may know less about other areas. And a woman in crisis often has neither the time nor the practical nor emotional resources to visit 10 different agencies to get answers. To have a comprehensive resource that lays out all the legal issues a woman may face is enormously useful."

RICW's Joyce Dolbec coordinated the efforts of the guide's many volunteer contributors. Social and health services providers helped identify their clients' legal needs. Lawyers from government, private practice, and universities simplified the language, and created examples of both the problems a given law was meant to remedy and the legal resources available to obtain such remedy. Agencies like Dorcas Place tested the text to ensure that it could be understood by anyone with a seventh-grade reading ability.

Three hundred copies of the handbooks are now available at libraries and human service organizations statewide; topics covered include health, education, immigration, housing, violence, and consumer rights. The guides are ring-bound to facilitate copying of sections by consumers and to make updating the guides easy and inexpensive. Also in the works are an online version, slated for spring, and a translation into Spanish. More information is available at www.ricw.state.ri.us.

Anthony is pleased that the three-year process also led to the creation of RICW's permanent Legislative Legal Rights Committee. "This project focused our attention on the importance of the legislative process," she says. "The new committee will allow us to monitor legislation and present ideas to elected officials, and give us a proactive role in legislation affecting Rhode Island's women."

Issue Date: January 18 - 24, 2002