Victim advocates' perceptions of legal work.

Past scholarship has weighed the risks and rewards of legal remedies for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Missing from this debate, however, is an analysis of the social incentives for victim advocates to offer legal options to their clients. Preliminary findings show that victim advocates perceive that outsiders respect legal work more than their care work with clients (listening, caring, and empathizing). This study offers three explanations for this phenomenon: (1) the devaluation of women's care work in general, (2) the confidentiality constraints on communicating the value of their care work, and (3) popular assumptions that care work requires professional credentials in order to be legitimate.