Domestic Violence Can Reach Beyond The Home Front

Pam Paziotopoulos, Leading Expert on Domestic Violence,
Founds Her Own Consulting Group

Pamela A. Paziotopoulos, J.D., is a leading expert, researcher, author and frequent lecturer on domestic violence and violence in the workplace.

After working as supervisor of the Cook County State's Attorney’s Office Domestic Violence Division and spending 11 years as a prosecutor, Paziotopoulos has founded her own consulting group to serve both public and private employers who are concerned with protecting workers from workplace-related domestic violence. As a specialist in domestic violence and stalking with several years experience prosecuting domestic violence cases, Paziotopoulos created the Domestic Violence Division for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in 1997, supervising the unit's 28 prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates, handling nearly 100,000 cases annually.

Her groundbreaking work in domestic violence research and instruction of training techniques for law enforcement is wide ranging. She has been a keynote speaker, led violence prevention workshops and seminars in 38 states and appeared as an expert on numerous national news programs over the years.

As a consultant expert, she worked with corporations, the FBI and other federal and local law enforcement agencies. Paziotopoulos is currently a participant and consultant for an FBI violence in the workplace group. Her expertise reaches overseas, as she has trained the Albanian National Police on domestic violence policy and procedures during a two-week session in Tirana, Albania.

During two separate periods in the Cook County State's Attorney's office, she crafted a Career Resource Center, which continues to assist victims of domestic violence, and helped secure $900,000 in federal, state and private grants for such initiatives. While Paziotopoulos remains active with the Justice Department and continues to conduct research in the area of domestic violence, the Paziotopoulos Group, Ltd. focuses considerable resources on teaching corporations how to raise awareness and create practical solutions to workplace violence issues.

Paziotopoulos is a former senior attorney at the American Prosecutors Research Institute's Criminal Prosecution Division and the author of numerous articles on the issues of domestic violence and stalking. Her article, "Violence Against Women Act: Federal Relief for State Prosecutors," has been cited repeatedly by the Federal Court of Appeals as decisive in defending the landmark legislation passed in Congress in 1994. In the fall of 2002, Paziotopoulos published a chapter for a Specialty Technical Publishers book titled "Workplace Violence Prevention: A Practical Guide."

Paziotopoulos supervised the nation’s first "multi-disciplinary" approach to safely leading victims through the criminal justice system. The program's development was due in part to a growing national concern among law enforcement that abuse victims continually failed to proceed with cases out of fear and lack of protection.

Paziotopoulos supervised the program that involved: the prosecutor's office, an advocacy office, a (civil) legal services office and an abuse treatment provider. The result was an increase in both the rate of victim participation in the prosecution of their abuser as well as the rate of convictions, which remains approximately 85 to 90 percent.

In July 2000, Paziotopoulos was selected by the magazine "Today's Chicago Woman" as one of 100 women making a difference in Chicago.

Paziotopoulos received her B.A. in speech communications from the University of Illinois at Champaign and her J.D. from Chicago Kent Law School-Illinois Institute of Technology. In November 2000, she received the first distinguished alumni award from Hinsdale South High School.

She is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, and the American Society of Industrial Security. She is licensed to practice law in Illinois and in Federal Court. She is a certified instructor for the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program. Paziotopoulos is married to an attorney and former prosecutor, and they reside on the North Side of Chicago.