I am Jill Jones Soderman, the Founder and Executive Director of the FCVFC.
The concept and name of the FCVFC was directly and immediately created upon my learning of the suicide death of a child for whom I acted as an advocate in family court in New Jersey, seeking to defend against the transfer of the child into the custody of a violently abusive father.
I received a phone call from the family on Oct. 25, 2005 while I was in Arizona working on a dissertation for a doctoral thesis comparing the nature and culture of different family courts across the country. I had already prepared material on courts in New Jersey and New York, was working on the nature of the family courts in Arizona, and then planned to be off to Texas.
I had written and published extensively in New Jersey (2002), addressing the cruelty, lawlessness, and arrogance of a judge—Margaret Mary McVeigh—and others who were transferring children into the custody and isolation of an abusive parent. Further focus related to using their authority in probate court to remove authority over wealthy elderly estate holders from authority over their estates (New Jersey Judge Alleged Corruption – Parts 1, 2, 3).
In my early years, age 7, I viewed myself as having grown up on a farm, working in a stable to pay for my riding lessons. I was, in fact, a kid from a wealthy, very privileged family who did not recognize social class/wealth disparity.
I was the youngest of many kids in the riding setting, age range from early teens to twenties. My life in this youth community was devoted to caring for horses and other animals and learning equestrian skills.
One day, bike riding with the older brother of my girlfriend, we stopped at his house to have his sister join us. As we came to the front door, my fourteen-year-old friend looked at me as he was grabbed by his father and disappeared into the house. As the door was slammed in my face, the sounds of the father’s yelling at his son were accompanied by the sounds of my friend being repeatedly beaten with a belt. I was in the country, on a country road with no neighbors, no traffic, no help.
The experience of utter helplessness and uselessness when faced with a need for meaningful intervention was not my first experience with such exposure, but it was my first experience of facing parental violence directed at a child. The memory of the overwhelming sense of helplessness and horror was and continues to be penetrating and mobilizing.
The FCVFC bears witness to crimes against children and their protectors — to educate — activate — litigate — prosecute against family court corruption that forces children to submit to violence and abuse.
