Lawyers Manual - Unified Court System

Address Confidentiality
Victim Who Needs Child Support 149
You may file a motion requesting that your client keep her address
confidential, if it is necessary to keep your client and her children safe. 13 By
demonstrating that the disclosure of address or other identifying information
would pose an unreasonable risk to the health or safety of your client or the
children, the court may authorize your client not to disclose any identifying
information in any papers submitted to the court.
The statute provides that, pending a finding on the request for confidentiality,
any address or other identifying information of the child or the party seeking
confidentiality must be safeguarded and sealed in order to prevent its inadvertent
or unauthorized use or disclosure. If you are contemplating making a motion for
confidentiality and you believe it would be unsafe to disclose the information, the
best practice would be to withhold the information from the beginning, since the
safeguards presently in place in the court are unreliable. You should designate a
disinterested person to be served with process, or request that the court designate
the clerk of the court to do so.
Address confidentiality is particularly troubling in child support matters
because the respondent has a right to discover financial information about your
client. All paychecks and other financial documents must be redacted, and it
may be necessary to request in camera inspections of the documents before the
case can proceed. Because of all the extra work required to keep the information
out of the hands of the respondent, it will be important to have a frank discussion
with your client to determine if the confidentiality is absolutely necessary. If the
abuser already knows where she lives or works, an order of protection may
provide sufficient protection.
Telephonic Testimony
If you believe it would be too traumatic, or unsafe, for your client to be in
the same room with her abuser, consider requesting the court to permit your
client to testify by telephone. The Family Court Act authorizes a court to permit a
party to testify by telephone or other electronic means where it determines that it
would be an undue hardship to testify at the court where the case is being heard. 14
As with confidentiality, this request should only be made when it is absolutely
necessary, both because it causes a lot of disruption in court and because it means
your client will not be in front of the support magistrate and her credibility cannot
be compared with that of her abuser.