Advocating for Innocent Spouses

Mental Disabilities and the Criminal Justice System

This week Elizabeth Kelley talks with her guest, Lisa Lawler. The two discuss why she started the White-Collar Wives Project, what they suggest as steps for survival in these cases, and how it relates to mental health issues.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why she started the White-Collar Wives Project, and what they do

• How mental health issues can impact a white-collar case and the people involved

• What Lisa suggests as steps for survival in these cases, and how to best protect innocent spouses and children

• What kind of trauma she has seen in the guilty and innocent parties involved in white-collar crimes

• What type of support groups and resources they offer, and what other therapy she advises for the children of the offender

• What the White-Collar Wives do to help with white-collar crime prevention

Lisa Lawler is a former white-collar wife turned innocent spouse advocate. In 2009 her husband was indicted and arrested for embezzling 2.6 million dollars from a prominent teaching hospital in New England. Although most of the stolen funds were recovered, her husband was sentenced to two years in prison and five years of probation. In the aftermath of this devastating event, in 2014, Lisa created an international support group for white-collar wives, and membership is now in the triple digits and spans four continents. In 2018, Lisa published The White-Collar Wives Survival Guide to provide much needed guidance for families on how to navigate the dire legal, economic, and emotional fallout that spouses and children of the perp are saddled with. Over the past ten years, Lisa has amassed unique insights into the perps who commit white-collar crimes and has utilized this knowledge to create a groundbreaking anti-fraud webinar series based on her up close and personal experience with perps and their families. This series brings a new perspective and new tools to the deterrence space, and has been widely embraced by corporations and business associations. Lisa says, "White-collar crimes are a reflection of the global pandemic of diseased minds." Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, ABA Journal, and national podcasts.

Website: thewhitecollarwivesproject.org FB: https://www.facebook.com/thewhitecollarwivesproject LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamayeslawler/ Contact: [e-mail]