Priest Abuse Cases Take ‘Fearsome Personal Toll’ on Plaintiffs’ Lawyers
Some lawyers who represented victims in priest abuse cases were so overwhelmed by the experience that they retired from law practice, saw their marriages fall apart and experienced psychological troubles.
The Associated Press chronicles how the cases affected four lawyers who represented plaintiffs. “The sex scandal that rocked the nation’s Roman Catholic Church took a fearsome personal toll on some of the top lawyers who dared to challenge the institution,” AP says. “While many of them ultimately reaped large fees for their services, the all-consuming workload, the pressure of battling the church and the stress of listening to graphic accounts of children’s suffering were debilitating.”
For Eric MacLeish, who helped win an $85 million settlement on behalf of more than 500 victims in Boston, the cases brought back memories of his own childhood sexual abuse. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and went through a divorce, the story says. He is now a college professor in New Hampshire.
Lawyer Sylvia Demarest partly retired from law practice after representing abuse victims. She told AP she was frustrated by an inability to help the victims recover. “What happens to kids when they’re abused and what happens to their brains when they are abused is something that we don’t know how to fix,” she said.
