THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Holly Maguigan
May 29, 1945 – November 15, 2023
“The battered women cases I was working on were quite consuming because people then didn’t know how to try these cases. The judges expected you to plead insanity or guilty.”
Lawyer, author, educator and one of the pioneers in representing criminalized survivors of violence.
Photo. Holly Maguigan in her office in Philadelphia in 1981, when she was a criminal defense lawyer. (Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia)
Holly Maguigan, professor emerita, New York University School of Law, a foremost expert on the defense of domestic-violence victims charged with assaulting or killing their abusers. (Photo: Sam Hollenshead, New York University Photo Bureau)
More About Holly:
- Obituary, The New York Times
- Biography, NYU Law
- “Lawyers You’ll Like: Professor Holly Maguigan,” hosted by Michael Smith Heidi Boghosian, January 5, 2021
- Holly Maguigan, Professor of Clinical Law, New York University School of Law delivered a talk entitled “True or False? Domestic Violence is a Crime Like Any Other Crime. False.” 2012
- Unveiling the Unconventional Legal Odyssey of Holly Maguigan: Pioneering Quest for Justice and the Unveiling of Battered Women Resilience, by Omezo Press, November 28, 2023
- “Battered women and self-defense: Myths and misconceptions in the current reform proposals,” by Holly Maguigan, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, December 1991.