On May 22, 2026, two attorneys representing the Rolesville Police Department were shot outside the Wake County Courthouse by an individual who had filed a civil lawsuit against the agency. After a contentious hearing, the litigant went to her car to retrieve a handgun and shot the attorneys as they were leaving the courthouse.
This shocking event sparked significant attention and debate about the legal profession, particularly about the impact of the stress of litigation on individuals struggling with mental illness. For those of us who practice family law, the incident highlighted risks that are all too common in the dynamics of the cases we handle.
When we think about violence in the courtroom, our minds are drawn to salacious online videos. A quick Google search on the topic yields YouTube videos showing a young man whacking a bailiff in the face with cuffed hands; a father making an impact statement lunging at a stoic defendant who murdered his daughter; a scene where family members erupt into fighting in the courtroom; a defendant rushing at a prosecutor from across the room with a makeshift knife; a Florida case where a defendant attacked his own lawyer.
Whatever entertainment value these videos may have, statistics show that courtroom violence is no laughing matter. In August 2024, the American Bar Association published an article titled, “Defusing The Violence Against Judges, As Courts Under Attack.” The article identified that credible threats of harm against judges have increased from 175 in 2019 to 500 in 2023. The article further described how in 2023, a Maryland county judge was killed in his own driveway after giving a ruling in a child custody case, highlighting how family law judges are particularly at risk.
Peeling Back the Layers
Family law cases carry a particularly high amount of stress. Recent statistics estimate that at least 50% of physical incidents related to litigation occur in family law cases involving custody or financial issues. While physical confrontations have garnered much public attention, emotional violence is often more prevalent in family law cases, and the signs are not as clear. In the family law context, the litigation itself can become a perpetuation of abuse through coercive control.
It has been well-established that the dissolution of high-conflict relationships presents heightened danger in the context of domestic violence. However, litigation abuse is an often-unrecognized form of domestic violence, manifesting itself as a form of coercive control.
In a May 2024 post by Yvonne Chin titled, “Exposing the Legal Bully: How Abusive Litigation Undermines Justice,” she defines litigation abuse as “the misuse of legal proceedings to harass, intimidate, or financially exhaust the other party.” The article highlights the prevalence of abusive litigation tactics in cases involving interpersonal violence and highlights how victims are often faced with an insurmountable choice—yield to the demands of the abuser or face continued lengthy and expensive legal proceedings.
Experts now emphasize that even with the absence of continued physical violence, coercive control often continues and escalates after separation, as abusers use custody battles to maintain dominance over victims. Perpetrators may use on-going communications as a means of harassment or continually try to portray a victim as psychologically unstable.
In 2025, The Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law published a research study by M. McCormack titled, “Endless Litigation In Family Court As A Method Of Post-Separation Coercive Control.” The article identified five major areas that illustrate coercive control in family court litigation:
- False allegations of parental alienation;
- Legal harassment;
- Misuse of shared parenting policies;
- Gaslighting and victim-blaming; and
- Weaponizing child welfare and court services.
The study examined a range of jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the Republic of Ireland. The article advocates for increased awareness among family court lawyers, through education on tools such as the Duluth Post-Separation and Control Wheel, to combat litigants who try to manipulate the court system.
Central to a better understanding of coercive control within the legal system is an expansion of the definition of domestic abuse to include patterns of behavior used by a partner to exert power and control over the other partner.
In England and Wales, the Domestic Abuse Act passed in 2021 did just that. McCormack stated, “In the context of growing recognition of coercive control as a distinct and persistent form of domestic abuse, there is an urgent need for practitioner tools that move beyond incident-led assessments and support a pattern-based approach to identifying ongoing risk.” One of the key areas of the study involved cases of false allegations made by one parent against the other. False allegations often result in extensive litigation and institutional interventions by agencies like Social Services. Individuals who make false allegations, even when the claims are ultimately proven false, often face no repercussions. The involvement of outside agencies with the family in a manner that perpetuates the abuser’s agenda is an extension of coercive control, prolonging harm and emotional distress.
This type of abuse was highlighted on a more dramatic scale in Freida McFadden’s 2022 novel “The Housemaid,” later adapted into the 2025 film by the same name. The psychological thriller starts from the point of view of Millie, a live-in maid who goes to work for a wealthy family.
Millie details the matriarch Nina’s increasingly erratic behavior, eventually learning of Nina’s prior commitment to a psychiatric facility. In stark contrast, Nina observes Millie’s husband Andrew as kind and gentle, and a major plot twist occurs when Andrew starts a relationship with Millie and kicks Nina out. Millie soon realizes that everything is not always as it seems when Andrew locks Millie in the attic, subjecting her to cruel “punishments.” The storyline then shifts to show Andrew subjected Nina to endless psychological abuse which she endured so as not to lose custody of her daughter. Ultimately, it is revealed that Andrew drugged Nina and staged an incident that made it appear Nina tried to kill herself and her young daughter, resulting in Nina being committed and viewed as crazy by everyone on the outside.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
To gain a better understanding of how coercive control can manifest itself in family law cases, I interviewed Dr. April Harris-Britt, a renowned expert in family law cases and the dynamics of high-conflict divorce. She explained that litigation abuse manifests itself through actions like extensive legal filings, frivolous motions, excessive discovery requests and depositions, subpoenas to various third parties, and repeated, unnecessary contempt motions. When such actions serve no legal purpose other than the intent to harm the other party, the situation can be akin to death by a thousand cuts, with each legal filing inflicting a small but measurable amount of harm that increases over time.
Harris-Britt opines that one of the most harmful aspects of the litigation process is delayed outcomes, particularly in child custody cases. Strategic delays that prolong the litigation process and avoid resolution keep individuals in a constant state of heightened stress. Harris-Britt explained, “The longer individuals are engaged in the conflict of litigation the more it increases anxiety and uncertainty, which dysregulates people and leads to hopelessness. The longer individuals are dysregulated the more difficulty they have engaging in logical problem solving.”
While many counties in North Carolina have implemented timelines for when temporary claims should be heard and endeavor to schedule newly filed cases within that, the reality of our clogged judicial system means that many of these cases will be continued once, if not multiple times.
Abusive litigation is not limited to cases that involve domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking, or harassment, and can occur at extreme levels in cases where emotional and psychological abuse have been the sole forms of abuse. Individuals with limited resources are particularly at risk, especially when the other parent has significant financial resources.
The Weaponization of Children
Harris-Britt identified that another form of litigation abuse can occur when people involve children in the process by using children as evidence or witnesses in the case, leaving a parent with the choice of being in a defensive posture against their own child or remaining silent and allowing their child to be a pawn in the process. This places a unique psychological stress on parents.
Harris-Britt reported witnessing more children being directly involved in legal processes such as having a DVPO action filed in their name against the other parent, children writing negative affidavits about a parent, or a parent attempting to use a child’s therapy records or journals directly in the litigation without a compelling need for such. She explains that mental health professionals working in any capacity with a court-involved family need to conduct a comprehensive assessment that includes gathering information from multiple sources.
Harris-Britt indicated it can be dangerous to get information from only one or two lenses, especially in cases where a therapist hears from only the child or only the child and the preferred parent, allowing a provider to form a perception about the other parent whom they have never met. “It is essential for mental health practitioners providing services in family law cases to get a comprehensive view of the family system before making conclusions or impressions or determining a course of treatment,” she said.
Harris-Britt cautioned that in family law, single events don’t tell the whole story. Mental health professionals working with high-conflict families need to be cognizant of patterns and be able to distinguish between isolated incidents and consistent patterns of behavior.
In examining events that are reported, professionals should look at the frequency of events, severity of events, and the impact of those events in developing a comprehensive view of what has occurred or is occurring in the family system. She also emphasizes that, across professions working with families embroiled in high-conflict litigation, we must make conscious choices about the roles we play and decide whether we will contribute to problem-solving and resolution or become complicit in worsening the distress of individuals and families navigating the legal system.
