Trafficking, Title IX, and Platform Liability: Building a Civil Rights Practice with Caitlin Engstrand

Caitlin Engstrand spent years as a public defender before moving into private practice with National Injury Attorneys, where she now handles civil rights, sexual assault, and trafficking victim cases across Arizona.

In this Law Labs episode she walks through the practical mechanics of building a practice in an area with no established playbook, and what the ABS structure changed about how she selects and funds cases.

Topics covered:

- The Backpage victim compensation fund and the documentation burden on decade-old trafficking claims

- Liability theory for platforms where adults gain access to minors, including Roblox and Meta

- Title IX exposure and the special relationship doctrine in Arizona school cases

- FERPA and HR objections as barriers to pre-suit evidence, and why discovery becomes the only path

- SROs acting under color of law, and the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment questions that follow

- The six month notice of claim window against public entities, and running a civil track parallel to a criminal defense

- Spousal tort viability: statute of limitations, collectability, and intentional tort exclusions in homeowners policies

- How class action revenue inside an ABS funded 700 pro bono hours last year

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Caitlin Engstrand's Journey

03:24 Transitioning from Public Defense to Private Practice

06:12 Understanding Backpage and Victim Compensation

09:02 The Impact of Trafficking on Victims

11:52 Liability of Online Platforms in Exploitation Cases

14:28 Navigating Legal Challenges in Child Protection

17:22 The Role of ABS in Modern Legal Practice

20:12 Civil Rights Cases Against Schools and Police

21:26 Navigating Civil and Criminal Cases

23:10 School Liability and Title IX Violations

28:37 The Role of School Resource Officers

36:17 Addressing Spousal Abuse and Legal Accountability

39:38 Suing Employers for Workplace Violations

Useful for practitioners evaluating alternative business structures, criminal defense and family law attorneys who encounter parallel civil claims, and anyone assessing referral relationships in this space.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Law Labs, where a law firm life gets a glow up. I'm Billy Taraschio, founder of Modern Law, and every week we crack open what it really takes to run, grow, and scale a law firm inside the age of AI and innovation. This is where firm owners, legal rebels, and business minds come to swap ideas, share wins, and messes, and rethink what's possible in the profession. If you're ready to lead smarter, scale faster, and build a firm that actually works for you and your clients, you're in the right place. Let's get to it. Hello, and welcome to the Modern Arizona Podcast. I'm your host, Billy Terrassi here today with a Law Labs Edition and Caitlin Engstrand, local Arizona attorney, tackling some seriously brave, ambitious issues. Terrifying, but brave. Yes. Welcome to the show. Hi, I'm so glad to be here and meet you officially. Absolutely. So I've been a big fan of Caitlin's for a while. She is just doing some really interesting things in the Arizona legal community. And most of us lawyers don't do a lot of interesting things. So whenever somebody is doing something different, they really stand out. And Caitlin, you you are. So tell people about your background and what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

So I was like a career public defender for a really long time. I went to law school in DC and I started doing child protective services cases there, like representing kinship and families. And we did a lot in the HIV AIDS community in DC. And so I really just fell in love with like working with families. So I moved back to Arizona. This is where I'm from, born and raised, and I got a job at first as a PD for parents and child protective services cases here. And then I started doing purely child representation in the DCS or the delinquency sphere. So I was doing criminal rep as well as if they were duly adjudicated kiddos in the system, I would do their cases as well. So, and then I finally was like, you know what, I think I need to head into a different direction. My husband has always done car accidents, he's always been plaintive personal injury, but he uh started a ABS and he with national injury attorneys. And so I just kind of saw it as an opportunity to continue to do the work that I like with families and kids. Um, and then just figured, you know what, maybe I need to give this a try. I could always come back to public defense work. So now I'm purely doing, well, not purely, but a lot of civil representation for women, families, children on civil rights cases as well as as like survivor-related civil work. But I still dabble in some criminal defense work. So because sometimes there's a cross section. So it's been an interesting year to say the least.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

So okay, so the first part of your career was pretty, I would say, normal, you know? Right. It's very normal to go work for government or nonprofit. And if you have a heart for activism, that's kind of where you gotta go. For sure. Usually. But you have taken this, you know, heart for activism and really like advocating for the underdog and creating justice and you go into the private sector. Talk to people about what that means.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

So basically, I mean, I I'm still figuring it out every day. You know, I get a lot of, you know, I've really built a practice. I do have a lot of clients. When my first started, we did a lot of applications for women who were trafficked through either motels or hotels, um, but also through backpage. So we did a lot of backpage revision campaigns for those women. And I just thought there is so much more that can be done for these types of women, especially here in the Valley. And so that's just kind of where it started. And basically everything that I'm doing, I pretty much taught myself. I did classes. It was, you know, just trying to figure out how I could get records, set up a practice, find clients, find my community. And so everyone who works with me, I've vetted and found and pretty much just reinventing the wheel. And I'm still every day trying to figure out the best way to kind of figure out and put this all together. And so, you know, I tell my clients there's no, you know, A, B, C approach to your case. All of these cases are so different. And I could be on the defense side one day, I could be on the plaintiff's side one day, I could be on the victim side one day. So it's just kind of like my practice. I really just pick the cases based on what I think the client needs. And I pick the cases based on the client, not necessarily, you know, what's happened, but just where I see, okay, this is the person that really needs the representation. And here's kind of the issue. I mean, I have defendants on cases that are private defendants, but I have corporations, government entities. There's basically nothing that there's no, you know, box for this. So basically it's just kind of like figuring it out. Um, I, you know, went to law school during a time where they were like, oh, you know, you need to like, you know, study it and study it and become an expert in something to do something. And I'm kind of just like, well, there really isn't an expert in what I'm doing. So I kind of just have to figure it out. And that's kind of where I'm at. And that's not usually what we do in the law. So sometimes I wake up at 3 a.m. like sweating, like, did I like completely jump the matrix and I'm crazy? Or am I onto something and we're really moving forward? But luckily, you know, my husband's my law partner. He supports me, you know, wholeheartedly. We have an amazing team and we do have an ABS. So I am actually able to do kind of more targeted approaches and really kind of just am able to do what I think is best on the case because of that. You know, we're not billing by hour. I'm not expected to do like a case a certain way or to, you know, settle a case a certain way. I'm really have more, you know, freedom to do what I want, especially in pro bono work. But through that pro bono work, I get, you know, a lot of, you know, education on how to do these types of cases and how to support the client and figure out a way to kind of make my way in the case or, you know, case five cases down the line. So it's been really interesting. So to say the least, in the last year, I used to be able to open a file and say, okay, here's the 10 things I'm gonna do. I know exactly how this case is gonna end up. I know exactly what to do. But in these terms, it's like I am completely figuring it out as I go. So it's been so interesting.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Okay. What is Backpage?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So Backpage actually started through New Times and um was owned actually by some um individuals here in the valley. And it was a way to, you know, sell stuff. It was like a form of Craigslist, um, if you'll recall, but they were actually legally trafficking women, children, men through these backpage opportunities. So um traffickers would use that to set up accounts for them. And so basically they were basically prosecuted federally for this. And what ended up happening was there was a victim compensation fund. So a lot of women can apply now. Uh, well, it's closed now, but back last year for compensation, saying, you know, I've suffered mental anguish, I'm out, you know, this type of money, I was never paid by my trafficker, and they could actually apply. So I actually worked with these women to get documentation from 10, 15 years ago to show that one, they were trafficked and two, they were in need of mental health treatment. And so it was really a it was an eye-opening experience. And I had done work with girls who were trafficked through the delinquency system because that can be pretty common and through DCS, but this was, you know, so much on a bigger scale. And so it was really interesting. And so I just, it was awesome. So I'm really that's probably the largest victim compensation program that's ever existed for trafficking victims. It wasn't a class action necessarily, but it's kind of like that, where they apply and say, here's, you know, what happened to me, here's my story, and you know, now I'm asking to be a part of this victim compensation. I mean, it could be really life-changing for a lot of these women because, you know, while they're being trafficked, they're not gating any type of like employment history. Uh, they maybe have been addicted to drugs or alcohol. They may have had things just completely taken from them by the traffickers. A lot of these women saw zero dollars of anything and they were actually indebted to traffickers. They might have gone to prison or been arrested or otherwise victimized. And so this would be huge to kind of getting a clean slate on their life and then being able to start over and maybe using that towards, you know, either paying down those debts from being trafficked or going back to school or, you know, putting their life together. So it's pretty awesome. So paying down debts from being trafficked just hut me like what? Well, because the traffickers, they would put things in their name. So they would they would steal the women's identities, they would take their information and they would get, you know, auto loans, you know, horrible designed loans, like with high interest credit. A lot of them would make them put the hotel rooms in their name and things like that. So a lot of these women have a lot of debts all around, or they owe probation fees or all this other stuff because, you know, they were round up in some type of trafficking ring. And if they didn't turn on the trafficker, then they threw the book at them. So that was typically, you know, prior to what we really understand about the trafficking, the force, fraud, and coercion aspects, these women were the book was really thrown at them. Um, if they weren't willing to, you know, go against their basically their abuser and you know, turn on them and you know, give them the information, then they were like, listen, you're gonna go to prison. And so that was an experience for a lot of women. And so it's just awful. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

So that immediately makes me think of OnlyFans. There have to be thousands, if not more, of people who are being trafficked on OnlyFans. We know how much money OnlyFans is making. Is is there a way for victims who are being trafficked on OnlyFans to sue OnlyFans?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I mean, I wouldn't I don't see why not. I mean, there's if that's somebody's experience, I think that that could definitely be something that I would take a look at if that was something. I mean, I don't know a lot about OnlyFans other than what I see on like TV or something. But yeah, I mean, it's another medium. I agree with it, it's another media, it's another media for exploitation. And that's the reality, is that you know, a lot of women might say, okay, I'm in control, I say when, I do this, I create the account. But yeah, there's always a level of, you know, exploitation that can occur in those types of situations. And so yeah, I mean, I I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt it.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

So and how do you prove that the and this is coming up in so many instances, you know, it's coming up in social media, it's coming up in Roblox, it's coming up over and over and over again, but how do you hold a platform liable when they, you know, essentially knew or should have known that people are being victimized on their platform? Can you help explain that?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Well, you really want to look at, okay, who was able to communicate, especially in like a robot situation. We have minors who are being contacted, who shouldn't be contacted. Anytime an adult who is not a family member, who is not in a position to help your child, that there is no legitimate purpose for an adult to be contacting a child online, period. No legitimate purpose. So if you're using that, if you're allowing either adults to contact minors, either because you don't have the controls to, you know, make sure that that doesn't happen, then yeah, I think that there, there's if you're helping that contact, then I think that's where it is. I had a Roblox case a few years ago. I was representing a child on there. And, you know, these people just have such a way of convincing these kids by force, fraud, coercion, you're in trouble. That I mean, the liability is there. There, there can't be a mechanism for somebody else to be contacting you to do that. It just seems like it's that's what it is. And that you are the one responsible for making sure that that contact happened because without that, your child wouldn't have had the means to be contacted by an adult. You know, I think that that's really what it is. It's like, why would you want to contact a child unless it was for some type of nefarious reason? There's no reason.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

You're seeing a chat wanting to go reach out to some child online at all.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

No, exactly. Exactly. So that's the way I really see it is that, you know, it's whoever is managing those accounts and ensuring that the person has the contact with the person, then that's where the liability comes from. You have that, that's where the duty comes in and that you breach those duties. That's a problem. Because if no one consented to that, or you're not monitoring, they're monitoring these messages. I mean, Instagram is monitoring every single message that we have. And so it's really like Meta knew they had a whole, you know, internal team that knew. They knew that there were 500,000, you know, messages t directed to children every single day that they ignored. That's a problem. You know, they know that. It's so easy to, you know, say that they didn't know. But I mean, if they have a whole, they have a whole team of people who are who are responsible for that and making sure. And they were aware of a lot of this as that's going on. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

So how willing are these companies, though, to pay out and to settle and to admit fault?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Well, I mean, there's a lot of class actions going on right now. So I mean, I don't think that they're they're necessarily wanting to pay out, but they're at some point, you know, if there's so many plaintiffs involved and there's so many children involved, they're gonna have to, you know, shit or get off the pot necessarily. Um, and now Meta, I mean, they've they've found Meta liable in so many other cases. And I think people are really starting to understand sexual assault, grooming so much more than we did 10 years ago that I think juries are really under more understanding of that, especially with the we've we've had a lot of good Uber wins for plaintiffs. And so I think people really get it now. It's not just necessarily, well, why would they do that? Why would they say that? Why would they meet up that person? I think people, I think the public is a lot more educated than they were before, especially with Epstein and everything else. I think people are like, okay, I get it. It's not just, okay, a stranger on the street in the alley coming after your kids. Like there's a whole vortex of danger that comes with the phones and the video games. And I think people kind of understand that more and that people are, you know, tar going to where the kids are. They used to go to the malls. That's what we used to do was, you know, we would be warned, you know, you have to be careful when you're out at the mall that there's like creepers there and everything. But it's like, it's just really in your phone now. There's so much, you know, risk there with your kids. And I think that's probably where, you know, they're gonna be coming more and more responsible. And I think generally the public does not think kids should be talking to adults online, you know. And so I think that's also another factor, is at some point they're gonna have to. But yeah, there's been a lot of good wins for plaintiffs in these types of cases.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

So these are the types of cases that you would take. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah. So we so we're part of a larger ABS, so we do um these types of cases, like the Roblox and the Ubers and things like that. Personally, I'm only licensed in Arizona, so I would be handling those types of cases here. But yeah, I do a lot of sexual assault-related cases. They're very difficult. And but I I really enjoy working with the families and I like doing those types of cases. So that would include government entities or private corporations or even private persons. I do those as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

So I want to talk about that as well. But first, explain why you have an ABS and how how that has impacted your practice. Because if I understand correctly, it's you and your husband and you're both lawyers. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

So we have we have we have another partner who is not a lawyer, but he's been in the legal field for a long time. So they do cases all over this the country. I only do cases in the I'm the Arizona attorney. And so I only do cases in Arizona. My husband only does cases in Arizona, but they're we're part of a larger group. And, you know, there's a lot of discord out there about ABS's, but for me, I've had nothing but a positive experience. Um, you know, I take on a lot of pro bono work every year because either one, it's connected to, you know, a larger case that we're trying to build, or two, it's just the right thing that needs to be done and there's nobody else available. We still have a huge access to justice gap in Arizona. Um, many people who are facing misdemeanor charges do not automatically get a public defender. And so there's a lot of issues. And there's just a lot of uh issues where there's just not enough lawyers to take on the kinds of cases like victim representation that I do. I do a lot of victim representation in criminal court, just to have somebody to walk them through the process, come with them to court, you know, look over their restitution paperwork, figure out options, get them with a therapist, all of these things. And so that's that's I've really enjoyed it because what happens is instead of saying Keitlin, you can't take this case, this is a free case. We have the funding through our class actions and other ones to for me to do that, where they can say if Keatlin needs to take the afternoon to go to this settlement conference for a woman who was sex trafficked, that's what we want to do. And so I did a lot this year. I think I did at least 700 hours of pro bono representation in the last year. Yeah. Um, it was good for me because I learned a lot through those experiences well. And so it's other things I can do. I mean, I did an original special action. I'd never done that before for women in prison, and it needed to get done. And there was nobody else who was going to be able to take that on from a firm that wasn't saying, well, if there's no check at the end of the rainbow, we can't, we can't spare, you know, the expenses on because there's still file, even if I'm doing a case for Rona, I still need to do filing expenses, maybe investigative work, print. I mean, just every little thing adds up. And so it's for me, it's been amazing. And so my firm really believes in our mission to really help as many people as possible. And so for me, it's been a great experience. Um, and I'm not kind of tied to, okay, these are the hours that I need to bill in order for us to keep the lights on. I mean, I'm representing, I just finished a woman's case. I got her case, her criminal charges dismissed. She was a domestic violence survivor. And her last attorney took her money and he didn't do anything. And his his firm went belly up because that's the reality, is a lot of these firms are because it's very expensive to run a law firm and to do it correctly and to not just, you know, have a revolving door. So I mean, that was a really good outcome for her. But if I hadn't been around, I don't know what would have ended up happening to her. And she had already, you know, spent money on an attorney. So it was just not a good outcome that way if if I hadn't been around to, you know, kind of ease that gap and get her through the finish line. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

So going back to the ABS and your your third-party non-owner partner, what exactly is their role?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So his role is really probably more of like the management of some of our intake people and some specific employees that we have. And I think the other role is probably more of like a marketing role and things like that. So I don't have to worry about the marketing. I don't have to supervise as many people, but I get to do what I want to do, which is actually work with the clients and do the legal work. So it's really good because if not, you know, that would be a large part of my day is, you know, making sure the billboards are contained, you know, making those calls, setting up those, you know, meetings and stuff like that. So it really does help out. And we have very clearly defined rules and we know what the mission is, which is basically to help as many people in Arizona as we can.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

So yeah. Okay. Um so you also mentioned that you've been suing governments.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Talk to me about that. So we have several civil rights cases. So I'm doing a lot of civil rights cases related to the police, but we're also doing a lot of civil rights cases related to schools and sexual assault cases. So I have several cases where a child has been sexually assaulted on campus, either by another peer or a teacher or an aide or a third party who was present on campus. So I do a lot of those. So it's a lot of school and police related cases. So uh a lot of children who were assaulted by the police on campus, but I have a loss of a lot of cases with the police just using excessive force against kids, either uh when investigating or during an arrest. So yeah, those are the types of cases because I do know a lot of criminal defense attorneys. And so if uh what the good thing about it is, is I've done criminal defense before. So if you have a criminal defense case, you know, I'm gonna work hand in hand with you while you're doing the criminal defense side so that I can do the civil case. And it's kind of a win-win for everybody because a lot of times you have clients that are like, I think my rights are violated. It's a good thing, even if, you know, I'm not able to take the case, I could just say this is a non issue, and I've reviewed it. And it's kind of a good thing for people who are doing criminal defense work if they want someone to kind of look it over and I can kind of evaluate is there a claim here? Does this rise to a very large constitutional value, uh constitutional violation that would say Yeah, there is a civil rights issue here, or it could be a non-issue, but it kind of moves the case forward either way. So that the client can either move on from that issue, or it's like, no, there actually is something here. Let's move forward in doing this. So these cases are very, very time consuming, but I really enjoy them. Um basically, you need to file a notice of claim if you're not a child within six months. So if you're arrested and you're like in custody and you're trying to do that, it's kind of nice having a secondary attorney because they can focus on getting your wand, getting you processed, figuring out your plea agreement, your trial stuff. And then I can be behind the scenes evaluating, getting public records requests, doing backgrounds with the officers and kind of moving forward from there. So those are those cases I really enjoy. And, you know, those are types of cases where, you know, while you're doing that, I can work on getting you therapy, making sure you have adequate medical attention. If you need physical therapy, that's more on like the personal injury side. So it kind of operates in that way. But yeah, those are cases that are really, really it's like going back to law school. Like all that stuff I learned in law school. It's like, oh yeah, okay, we're actually applying that somewhere. So it's been really fun. So I do like those cases.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

So when is a school liable if a child is assaulted or sexually assaulted at school?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

So there's several ways that the school could be liable. One, there's Title IX violations. So when your child is at school, they have to be free from sexual harassment. So that would not just include like physical touching, but text messages, messages, uh, any type of, and that includes with, you know, other students, any type of sexual harassment. So that's one piece. And then I I believe that Title IX would protect for any type of sexual assault, which would be included under sexual harassment. So there's Title IX violations the whole school will be facing. But, you know, school cases are because go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

It's happening all day, every day. All day, every day. Children are being harassed by other students or by teachers. There's just there's too many, there's too many like articles that come out every damn day.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

And the cases that I'm doing aren't even on the news. So there's more because the schools hide behind FERPA, which is the federal act that says, you know, when your child's at school, we're not going to discuss stuff. And that happens through them. So a lot of this is happening behind the scenes. So I get so many calls from parents every day. They're like, what do you mean they're not giving us the video? What do you mean we're not getting evidence about my child being sexually assaulted? And it's a really crazy, because I mean, I grew up here. I went to public school. My kids go to public school. I believe in the public system, but what's happening is everyone is so concerned about the bottom line at the school that kids are not being adequately protected and parents aren't getting answers. And that's when they get to me. And I'm like, this is going to be a whole can of worms. So it's, yeah, it's happening every single day. And so not just Title IX violations, but the schools are basically either letting in people in who should not be present. There's either security violations or there is issues with other students and issues with just either teachers or staff aides, after school community, all these other people. And yeah, that can be so when your child's at school, because we are legally required in the state of Arizona to send our kids to school until they're 16. When they are there, you have they have a duty to you and the duty to the child. There's a special relationship. That's all the case law says they have a special relationship with your child to keep them safe from foreseeable harm. Now, if you're letting people in who should not be there, that's a huge problem. If you're not monitoring the staff and the children appropriately, that's a problem. If your child is not being monitored appropriately with other students, that is a problem because they have a special duty. So that's when the liability comes through, is that type of situation. And, you know, I know there's a lot of stuff on the news about high school students, but I'm here to tell you it is the elementary and the middle school students that are all, it's not just the high schools. And I think that gets a lot of press, but some of my clients are from the first grade. I mean, this is severely young children who have no business being exposed to any type of sexual contact, sexual um discussion, anything. And the schools are not, you know, they're not our friends when those types of investigations come through. And so that's when I have to come in and preserve all the evidence at the school, get the criminal investigation going. And even then, it's still very hard to get access to information when it comes to your child. So that we have to file notice claims and move forward on lawsuits. So that's definitely the stuff that we've been doing recently. And it's just very, very scary because you think that they're that all this stuff is used to protect you, you know, all the policies they have, you know, making sure there's surveillance, making sure there's security. Well, well, they don't tell you is they're not going to give you any of that. You know, they're using that for their insurance policies to make sure that they are down. They're not, it's not there to protect your kid. So we're not even going to get to any of that until after we file a lawsuit and after we go through discovery. So that's going to be, you know, two years down the line. You might get access to the video. Sometimes they'll let you view the video, but they won't let you record it. And what what good is that? So, so that's that's typically what I see, those types of situations. So when I started seeing that, that was really disheartening. And it's just, it's not any one school, it's all of the schools because I have kids all over the valley, Queen Creek, Lavine, Phoenix. And it doesn't matter how nice your school is or how, you know, how much good of a relationship you have with the PTO president. It you're not going to get the answers that you want. And that's why you really have to file a lawyer or hire a lawyer. And my cases are in a contingency. So that's, you know, I represent a lot of families who wouldn't be able to afford representation. So, you know, but it's still good to call and, you know, figure out if this is something that we can take on a contingency basis. Because moving forward, it's kind of better to have answers than to just kind of say, well, I don't know what happened. And because they're never going to give you the answers that you want. And they're never going to give you the accurate information that you need. Because they'll say, Well, we can't talk about that. That's an HR issue. Well, we can't talk about the other student. That's a FERPA issue. We're not going to give you access to that. Oh, you know, please, you know, contact our district lawyer or attorney, and they're not going to give you the information that you need, you know. So yeah, it's kind of scary.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Well, it's a little depressing because what this means, you know, schools are already underfunded. One of the reasons why we have the issues we have. One of them. I mean, so if everybody starts suing for all of these issues, it's the only way that they're going to actually make changes. You kind of have to do it. And at the same time, it's going to bankrupt the schools further.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So as a mom and a- they have very large, they have very large insurance policies, the schools, in my opinion. So I I wouldn't, yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, it would be the same thing if something happened to your kid at Target. I mean, I mean, quite honestly, I mean, it's the same thing, but except the schools have a special duty. Target doesn't have a special duty. They have a regular duty. They need to keep the premises safe, blah, blah, blah. But when your child's at school, because you legally have to send them to school, you can't, I mean, you can do homeschooling. That's that's fine. But like you can't just let them not go to school. So when they're at school, they have to keep them reasonably safe. And if something happens to your kid, and these sexual assault cases, these, these, this could profoundly impact your child's life forever. I mean, that's what the studies show. It's so complicated that you have to move forward. You know, that's kind of how it is. It's like, unless you can independently fund, you know, specialized treatment for your kid for the next 50 years, you know, that might be the only way for your kid to be made whole and to get what they need. You know, it's unfortunate. I mean, especially with insurances and stuff, you're not going to be getting trauma therapy, EMDR therapy, equine therapy, all these things that we have studies that show it are really, really good, especially for kids after a sexual assault, if you're not taking the steps towards the school, you know. So Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

And then I've also seen lots of videos of what happened when we put cops in schools in terms of brutal assaults by police on students. Can you talk a little bit about that? I'm not sure that everybody knows about this.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

So SROs are known as school resource officers. So people think that they're for resources like, you know, therapy support. Well, they're all they are is a separate municipality who is plucked away from, you know, let's say Tempe, City of Tempe, Tempe Police Department, and put into your child's school at Tempe High School. Okay. That's all that they are. They're not a resource officer. Yes, they may, you know, have a kumbaya with the kids at the pepper alley, but they are a police officer. So not only do they have the special duties that we talked about from schools, but they act under the color of law. Okay. So they that now you have the Fourth Amendment with the 14th Amendment at your kids' school there. And so a lot of kids don't realize, and a lot of parents don't realize these are actual police officers. A lot of police officers that I've had on cases, you know, got in trouble. And so they said, you're going to go to the high school. No. And that's to me is a huge, that's a huge problem because I feel like we need the most advanced and the best quality of officers if they're going to be at a school. And so there's several things that, you know, I think there's just misconceptions with that these are like their buddies, but they are there. They're there to investigate. They are there to take records. They are there to mirandize your child. They are there. And a lot of the parents don't understand that these are not just, you know, Prince of Bel Air. They are there because they, you know, are going to be the eyes and ears of law enforcement on campus for your child. And typically there's more than one SRO. So there's several officers who are there. And sometimes they might be there because, you know, they weren't very good at field work or detective work, but they needed somewhere put there. So that can be a problem. So I have not been that impressed with a lot of the SROs that I've encountered. I have SRO cases currently. And, you know, that can be very difficult. Now I've encountered great SROs that, you know, really care about the students, but it's it's kind of like, again, with the phone, it's like you're opening your kid up to a lot more liability. You know, back when I was younger and we were in Arizona, I felt like, you know, we resolved conflicts, you know, within the family, within the school. But then you've got not just the principal making decisions, but you know, the Tempe police making decisions about your kid in the situation that happened at school. And so it can be, you just really have to be knowledgeable and really educate your kids on this is still a police officer. This is not your friend. You know, if they want to talk to you, it'd be a good idea for you to call me. I'm not going to be mad at you. I'm there to support you. I'm there to get information. I mean, obviously we're going to be mad, but like we just tell our kids that. But, you know, I think there's a lot of education that these are not, these are still police officers. And so that's the whole situation.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

I feel like if if my child's in school, I have a lot of and in trouble in school. I have a lot of jobs at that moment. I have to I have to protect my children from law enforcement or unreasonable discipline. I have to protect my children from the school and the cops. And then I have to parent my children for whatever is that needs to be addressed as a parent. But I don't want either the school or the cops deciding how to fix what might be.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Right, how to discipline. Because then you're going to get a ticket, you're going to get a citation in the mail, and you guys are going to be going down to a juvenile court for something that maybe could have been resolved absent them being there. And then you have the judge making decisions about your discipline. And it's just like, you know, the type of law you do. It's like either you can settle it together or you can make the judge decide, you know, what's going to happen. And so yeah, that's, I think it's scary, you know, and especially with everything going on, you know, I I I my kids are only eight, but they understand what I do and they understand that I have to be present and that sometimes officers don't look like officers because we see them every day, but they are officers. So I think that's gotta be a discussion that you have with your kid is like, no matter what you do, I have to be there because you need to be able to figure out what how serious is this? And the officers will always tell you it's not that serious because they think it's juvenile court and they think juvenile court is Mickey Mouse court. And I'm like, this your kid could be going to prison on something pretty minor. You could be going to court-ordered rehab against your will for a misdemeanor, you know, and that's kids as young as eight. And so you really have to have that discussion with your kids early about kind of how the system really operates. That, you know, there could be you could say the one wrong thing, and the probation officer goes, I'm I don't like this. Maybe you do need to go see the judge, you know? And so it's kind of like it could just be the start of a snowball. So I think it's really good to like have those discussions with your kids early about what would need to happen if you did get in trouble, you know, because a lot of kids get in trouble and they really didn't do anything. They were just with the wrong person and they were there and they didn't want to rat on their friends. So they decided, okay, well, then that must be, you know, a primary person involved. And that's kind of how it snowballs. Or the kids just like, I don't care, and I'm just gonna say I did it, and then they're like, Oh boy, here I am now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Scary stuff for sure. So we've talked about suing government, suing schools, suing platforms. What about the other place that I would see this coming up a lot? Well, two, I guess. There's spousal torts, which comes up a lot for in my area of law where you've been abused. You've been abused by your spouse. Yeah. And the family court where I work is not there to make you whole or to find fault or to compensate you for your injuries. Do you take those cases?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

I mean, I would. I do have a case right now that we're investigating that. It's just so difficult because, you know, one, okay, you're gonna sue your spouse. Like, what are your end goals? Are your end goals to get a check? Is it just for accountability? Is it just for the judge to say, yeah, you were abused? Like, what is what is the outcome? And a lot of these cases arise out of criminal cases that they didn't move forward on, which it's a different legal standard, you know, of course. Um, if they're not willing to go beyond a reasonable doubt that he hurt you or, you know, your children, then that can be really hard. But I mean, I would definitely be open to that. It's definitely new law because it's kind of like, okay, when did the abuse occur? Sometimes the abuse occurs over several time periods. So it'd be about terming, are we still within the statute limitations? And to does your spouse or your ex-spouse have any, you know, financials that we could actually tack in this type of case? Or, you know, could we look at homeowners' insurance or other types of insurance? And, you know, that wouldn't cover typically intentional torts. So if your husband intentionally wanted to abuse you, then there might not be any real funding source for you to tap into unless there is like actual, you know, property or financials that we could tap into as far as a potential settlement. But I I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't I wouldn't be objectionable doing it, especially in a large, you know, type of abuse case, because yeah, I do think it's it's really difficult.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

It is difficult. And you know, a lot of things have to align. They have to have the money to pay you, and you have to be hurt enough to quantify your damages. And it, you know, it's nice to say that, but like people should know that. Those are those are important things.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yeah. If your, you know, ex is, you know, either hiding funds, because I get those calls a lot, that there is funding, but it's being tied up somewhere, then, you know, it might not be worth your, you know, sanity, you know, to go through that because it's not just a matter of, okay, we're gonna move forward the lawsuit. I mean, this is basically like round two of family court, except, you know, we're on the other side and we have to prove every single tiny thing that you're alleging. You know, we have to have adequate witnesses. And a lot of these cases happen in the dark, but it's not something that I'm objectionable to doing, especially, you know, if the person's open to getting, you know, evaluations going into therapy, things like that, because that's kind of how we would produce the type of evidence if there was a lot of abuse happening behind the scenes. And so I work with really great experts who are either sexual assault or domestic violence related. So if that's something that they'd be willing to do, then I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't steer clear from the case because of that. It would be about, you know, being creative and what we would need to do in order to build the case and and find, you know, some type of funding source.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

So I think I need to find out who those experts are because they would be useful to be able to do that. I'll send them to you. Yeah, thank you. Um, okay, we're we're almost out of time, but the last thing I want to talk to you about is suing employers when people are um do you do that? Do you sue employers?

SPEAKER_00 39:38

I haven't done a lot of those cases. I do a lot of employers for children who are given fake IDs by strip clubs and end up suing the employers that way. That's typically what I do. I haven't done a lot of employment-related harassment or just in general sexual assault, but I know that there's lawyers that do those. It's just not something I've come up with yet. But I do pretty much more in like a sex trafficking realm, either through like probably a strip club or like a nightclub type situation. That that would be the types of cases that that I would handle. I think for those types of cases, like more either adult types of cases, I would say that's more, I would definitely talk to an employment attorney more who does the sexual assault, sexual harassment aspects. I think that that would more cover you. Mine is more of like really nefarious employment practice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Yeah. Unpaid labor, you know, traffic. Yes, slavery.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Contributing to the delinquency of a minor violating local, state, and federal laws. Yeah, that's a problem. Caitlin, thank you so much for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

If people That was awesome. Yeah, I really appreciate your time. And if people want to get a hold of you, if they think, hey, I might have a case, what's the best way for them to contact you?

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Um, you guys can call the office at 602-777-3333. Or if you want, I have a in my bio on Instagram and TikTok, it's just Caitlin Engstrand. I have a free consultation. You can just book with me. Um, a lot of times, you know, if I can't help you, I'll send you a summary of like what we talked about, what are the issues involved, another attorney, or if you need to do something on your own, here's kind of how you can preserve any claims that you may have moving forward. So I love to do those. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Have a great day. Thank you. Thanks for joining me on Law Labs. If today's episode gave you something to think about or something to act on, I'd love to hear from you. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with someone building the future of law. Until next time, keep experimenting, keep evolving, and I'll see you back in the lab.