Sex Abuse Lawyer

I have been asked to participate in a panel at my law school.  I’ve done panels before, but I’ve never had to write a short bio before.  This is surprisingly difficult.  So far, this is what I have:

Shelley Mactyre represents survivors of incest, child sex abuse, molestation, and rape in civil cases.  She has a BA with distinction from the University of Nevada and a JD from Lewis and Clark Law School.  She lives in Portland with her husband and daughter.

But this doesn’t explain anything.  It doesn’t explain how I go from not being able to watch Law and Order SVU when I’m at home (something I could do just fine before I had a baby, by the way) to an office where I routinely discuss some of the grossest, nastiest, most horrible things one person could do to another – with other lawyers and with the participants.  At my office, we can talk about how an “ordinary” violent rape is so much easier to handle than a case involving years of child sex abuse. How did I get here?  I mean, I’m the person who hated torts class in 1L because it involved people hurting one another.  I lived for future interests in property!  The Rule in Shelley’s Case – give me that, please, above Palsgraf.

I think I finally understand how I got here, though.  It’s a weird story, not appropriate for a short bio, but it goes like this:

I am the daughter of a minister.  I was privy to secrets.  Bad things happened to parishioners, and I heard my parents talking. A woman in the church, someone well known to me, was raped and murdered brutally. I learned what that meant before I had any right to.  And for other reasons, I had to grow up quickly, understand that people lie for all sorts of reasons, and that weird stuff happens, and that sometimes people don’t do the right things.

Ministers’ families also get pulled into the work: for example, when my father was on active duty in the Navy, he once handed me a phone in a rush and said, “Here.  Keep her on the line until I can find her.”  One of the sailors on his ship was suicidal, and I made small talk (and big talk) with her until Dad tracked her down at a phone booth in a BART station.

And I know, obviously, how churches work.  That makes me a natural, at least for some of our cases.

I like the work.  The legal issues I deal with are pretty routine: statutes of limitations, respondeat superior, successor liability – that sort of stuff.  Oregon has great cases for plaintiffs’ lawyers in that respect.  Mostly, though, I mind our clients – keep track of them, read their records, make sure they understand what’s coming up next, and do a lot of reassuring – that’s maybe half my job.  And sometimes – more often than not, I’m delighted to say – I’m privileged to see them go from complete train wrecks to confident, strong women over the course of the litigation.   That, alone, makes it all worthwhile.