About Our Guest
Lisa Johnson
Shared as part of The Impactful Voice Project™ and Not Just A Story™ with Rose Davidson
One Voice. Infinite Impact.™
Lisa Johnson is the co-founder of Been There Got Out and a high-conflict divorce strategist who draws on her own experience of representing herself through 7.5 years of court proceedings. Today, she helps people navigating high-conflict divorce, custody disputes and difficult co-parenting situations better understand the process, protect their resources and move forward with greater confidence.
Lisa Johnson shares how she survived 7.5 years of legal abuse, represented herself in court, and now helps others navigate high-conflict divorce.
KEY POINTS
- Legal abuse can extend control after separation. Repeated use of legal processes can consume time, money and emotional energy when they are deliberately used to intimidate, punish or exhaust another person.
- Preparation and understanding matter. Lisa’s experience representing herself through years of court proceedings taught her the importance of documentation, strategy and understanding how the legal process works.
- Recognising the broader pattern is important. Individual hearings or filings may appear ordinary when viewed separately. Understanding the cumulative pattern can help explain why legal abuse can become another form of post-separation coercive control.
About this Episode
Leaving an abusive or high-conflict relationship does not always bring an end to the conflict. Sometimes, the legal system becomes the next place where control, intimidation and financial pressure are played out.
In this episode of Not Just A Story™, Lisa Johnson shares what it was like to represent herself in court through 7.5 years of legal conflict.
Lisa describes legal abuse as the weaponisation of legal processes to wear another person down — emotionally, practically and financially. Her understanding comes from lived experience. She appeared in court scores of times, learned how to navigate a system she never expected to know so intimately, and eventually saw her case published in the Connecticut Law Journal, where it is being used as legal precedent.
Her experience also led her into advocacy. Lisa gave live testimony that helped support Jennifers’ Law, legislation that expanded Connecticut’s legal definition of domestic violence to include coercive control.
But this conversation is not only about what happened in court.
It is about the cumulative impact of prolonged conflict: the money spent, the energy consumed, the uncertainty of the next filing, and the pressure of having to keep responding when what you most want is to move forward.
Today, Lisa and her partner, Chris, co-founded Been There Got Out, helping people navigate high-conflict divorce, custody battles and difficult co-parenting situations with greater preparation and support. They also run a weekly Legal Abuse Support Group.
This episode offers a grounded look at what legal abuse can feel like from the inside — and why recognising the pattern matters.
It is a conversation about endurance, systems, coercive control and what it takes to reclaim time, energy, agency and dignity after years of conflict.
This episode is for information and lived-experience discussion only and does not constitute legal advice.
Listen to the Episode
What happens when the system you turn to for resolution becomes another place where you are forced to keep fighting?
Your experience is more than what happened to you. If this conversation has stirred something within you, perhaps it is an invitation to reflect on the story you carry — and whether, when the time feels right, you might choose to give it a voice.
More About Lisa
Lisa Johnson is the co-founder of Been There Got Out and a high-conflict divorce strategist who draws on both lived experience and years of navigating the family court system. She represented herself through scores of court appearances during a 7.5-year legal battle, and her case was published in the Connecticut Law Journal and is being used as legal precedent.
Lisa also gave live testimony that helped support the passage of Jennifers’ Law, which expanded Connecticut’s legal definition of domestic violence to include coercive control.
Today, Lisa and her partner, Chris, help people facing high-conflict divorce, custody disputes and difficult co-parenting situations prepare more effectively for family court and life beyond it.
Through Been There Got Out, they also offer a weekly Legal Abuse Support Group for people dealing with high-conflict or narcissistic opponents in legal matters, with a focus on reducing unnecessary financial, emotional and practical harm along the way.
#LegalAbuse, #HighConflictDivorce, #CoerciveControl, #FamilyCourt, #PostSeparationAbuse, #DomesticViolence, #LivedExperience, #BeenThereGotOut, #NotJustAStory, #RoseDavidson, #PodMatch
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