Sexual Abuse

At KazLaw, we understand it takes an immense amount of courage and determination to seek justice for the crime of sexual violence. Many of our clients have spent years, sometimes decades, suffering in silence and isolation. To reach out for help, one must first overcome complex feelings of shame, worthlessness, self-loathing, helplessness, and other self-destructive distorted thoughts.

The clients we work with approach us not simply because they want financial compensation for their injuries; more importantly, they want validation, accountability, change, and truth. We understand that the process of justice can be just as important as the result.

Depending on the client’s wishes, it is not our general practice to rush to settlement, as many lawyers in this area of practice tend to do. Rather, we work with our clients to establish a litigation plan and strategy that will help them achieve their justice goals and, hopefully, help them move further along in their recovery journey.

Recognizing that civil litigation can be particularly distressing for survivors of sexual violence who suffer from complex posttraumatic stress disorder, our team is trauma-informed and provides more than just impersonal legal services.

Our client support specialist, Leona Huggins, is a survivor of clergy abuse herself. She is a well-regarded survivors’ advocate; if you Google her name, you will find countless media articles on her many accomplishments. Leona’s role at KazLaw is to provide peer support to our clients, to help mentor them through the procedural steps of the case. Leona is also a researcher extraordinaire: she helps to empower our clients to work with the team, if they want to, to find the truth through their own hard work and research, particularly in our historical abuse cases. A recent example of this is when Leona helped our client, L.V., find the truth about her abuser, Fr. Georges Chevrier, by going with her to the Vancouver Public Library, combing through old Catholic books, and finally in listening to the podcast, Stolen, on Spotify – where Chevrier’s name was identified as a previously-accused abuser in Saskatchewan. This moment brought much-needed validation and healing for L.V.

Our team leader and senior lawyer of the group, Sandy Kovacs, is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by an extended family member. She has sincere empathy for our clients’ circumstances because she has walked in their shoes, and she is keenly aware of the challenges survivors face in first accessing the justice system, and then realizing justice.

Sandy and the assistant leader of the team, lawyer Mallory Hogan, are tenacious in their stated mission of advancing the civil law as it pertains to claims of sexual abuse, including the recognition of new torts in Canada and achieving awards of compensatory damages that are truly reflective of the severity of the injury.

Advancing the civil law has a public policy purpose: until the law fully recognizes the harms and losses that flow from sexual violence in our communities, there is inadequate deterrence not only for perpetrators but for the institutions that are tasked with monitoring them. We cannot keep children safe in our communities unless the institutions in our communities – schools, churches, and even families – are properly educated and incentivized to detect sexual deviance and take reasonable steps to mitigate against that risk. The sexual abuse of children and vulnerable persons is not a historical problem in our communities: it is a continuing problem today. Advancing the law creates greater awareness and accountability, and with greater awareness and accountability comes action.

If your values and goals align with ours, we welcome your telephone call, when you are ready. You will not be pressured to sign a retainer with us; again, it is not our practice to rush our clients forward. Working with us is your opportunity to take control – to reclaim your power over your own decisions, to reclaim your power over your abuser, and to reclaim your power over your own life.