The Los Altos nonprofit WomenSV, an organization that purports to help women who are going through

a divorce with abusive husbands, provides little support and then refers these vulnerable women to
high-priced attorneys, according to more than 50 women who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Virtually all of the women report that after reaching out to WomenSV for support, the divorce attorneys
they were referred to provided legal services that exacerbated their problems, including losing
ownership of the family home, custody of their children and being stripped of all their assets and
community property, with some even facing criminal prosecution or threats of being jailed themselves.

If a lawyer referral service, like the one run by WomenSV, operates in California without certification by
the state, they are violating the law, according to the California State Bar.

WomenSV is not on the Bar’s list of certified lawyer referral services.

The attorney referrals made by Patrick generated millions in legal fees for the family law firms and
divorce lawyers. Most of the women who sought help from WomenSV were wealthy, and involved in
high-asset divorces, the type of cases that divorce attorneys prize because they generate substantial
legal fees. Billings can easily exceed $1 million in a single, high-asset divorce case.

The backstory of how Patrick came to start a nonprofit serving women going through abusive
relationships and divorces does not appear to be what Patrick has claimed.

Patrick claims she was motivated to start WomenSV because she survived an abusive relationship and a
traumatic divorce, but court records and other sources suggest otherwise.

WomenSV founder’s divorce

In 2009, Ruth Patrick filed for divorce and at the same time requested a domestic violence restraining
order against her ex-husband. Simultaneous court filings are a common litigation tactic often used by
ethically-challenged family law attorneys to gain an immediate advantage in a divorce case.
In Patrick’s case, the domestic violence allegations, if true, would give her significant leverage in any
child custody dispute, spousal and child support determinations, and the division of community assets.

Court records indicate that the abuse claims in the Patrick divorce were not true, and instead part of an
apparent scheme to obtain full custody of the couple’s two children and a $4 million divorce settlement.

When the restraining order was granted, the ex-husband had to turn his guns over to Mountain View
Police for safekeeping, pending the outcome of the restraining order request. Ruth had turned in her
guns two days earlier.

Read more here:

https://www.davisvanguard.org/2023/03/tainted-trials-tarnished-headlines-stolen-justice-part-four/