Divorce Attorney's Murder A Chilling Reminder Of The Dangers Of Family Law

A Wisconsin divorce lawyer is killed in a husband's shooting rampage. Sadly, this has happened before.

GettyImages-486760104On March 22, attorney Sara Quirt Sann was shot and killed by her client’s estranged husband. Her killer’s rampage included murdering two of his wife’s co-workers, before driving to Sann’s office and gunning her down, and subsequently killing a detective setting up a perimeter around the gunman’s house. The shooter himself died of several gunshot wounds.

Unfortunately, family law attorneys face the constant threat of violence. In February, attorney Bryan Young and his divorce client were killed. In 2011, a 73-year-old man killed retiring attorney Jerrold Shelley in his office over a divorce five years earlier. At the time, the National Law Journal noted that at least five other family lawyers had been killed or violently attacked over just the prior year.

Lawyers often interject themselves into hurt feelings and — as recent events show — all lawyers face dangers. But lawyers working in family law navigate the most raw hurt feelings, touching the most intimate human relationships. That raises the risk of horrific violence, and that’s before taking into account that a history of violence is often involved in divorces.

In a quote provided to the National Law Journal in 2011:

“There’s a saying that in criminal court, you have bad people at their best,” said Texas Supreme Court Judge Debra Lehrmann, who spent more than 20 years as a family court judge. “In family law, you get good people at their worst. In criminal court, dangerous people are in handcuffs. In family court, you don’t have any idea who is dangerous.”

Our thoughts are with Sara Quirt Sann’s family and the families of the many other family law attorneys who have been attacked and killed over the years.


Sponsored

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

Sponsored