Domestic Violence and Family Law: Understanding High Risk and Potential Lethal Outcomes in Child Custody Cases

Honorable Sherrill A. Ellsworth (Ret) 

Judge Sherrill Ellsworth is currently working as a Judicial Consultant to Government and Non-Profit Organizations. Judge Ellsworth also works as a Private Judge and Mediator. She continues her decades of volunteerism as an active Judicial Educator working with entities such as the National Judicial College and the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Prior to this she was acting Chief Community Officer and co-founder of coParenter, an Intelligent Dispute Resolution (IDR) platform.   

Judge Ellsworth worked for 20 years as a Commissioner, Judge, Supervising Judge, and then Presiding Judge for the Superior Court of California, Riverside. She is the recipient of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, Lawyer of the Year Award, the Douglas E. Weathers Award for Judicial Leadership, and Impact Council Outstanding Businesswomen of the Year for her judicial leadership, Riverside County Family Law Bar Association Award as well as community awards for judicial leadership. She was a member of California’s Judicial Council and has served on multiple task forces, Administrative Offices of the Courts Committees and Work Groups focused on Domestic Violence, Family / Juvenile law, Technology, Diversity/Bias, Rules and Forms, and Legislative issues.   

She is dedicated to her family; one husband, 6 children, 13 grandchildren and her dog. Judge Ellsworth now resides on a lake between Spokane, WA and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. 

Julia F. Weber, Esq., MSW 

Julia F. Weber, Esq., MSW, has spent her career developing innovative approaches to solving complex issues facing families, children, and communities. She consults, serves as an expert witness, and regularly speaks nationally on domestic violence, firearms violence prevention policies, child custody, and implementation of promising practices around violence prevention.  

Most recently, she served as the director of the National Center on Gun Violence in Relationships; immediately prior to that, she spent four years with Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence where she became the first Implementation Director. In that capacity, Julia successfully advocated for policy changes addressing firearms relinquishment and $40 million in California state funding for implementation; she's also drafted and advocated for related legislation addressing the intersection of firearms and family law matters.   

From 1999-2017, Julia worked with the Judicial Council of California staffing family law, domestic violence, and access to justice projects and developing rules of court, providing judicial and court staff training, and drafting key court procedures for gun violence and domestic violence restraining orders, and other state policies.   

Julia has been an adjunct professor teaching domestic violence law at Golden Gate University School of Law for the last seven years; she previously taught courses on race, gender, and law at Washington University in St. Louis. Julia resides in San Francisco and is a family law mediator and member of the California Bar. 

Rebecca Perra

Rebecca Perra is a bar-certified attorney in Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well as a Florida Supreme Court-certified mediator in the areas of Family and Dependency Law. She also serves as the Judicial Education Coordinator for OurFamilyWizard. In this role, she educates judges, lawyers, and other family law professionals on the online tools that are used to reduce conflict and increase accountability in high-conflict co-parenting situations.