Legal abuse is the use of the legal system to cause mental distress, often through unfounded lawsuits or threats of legal action. It can lead to a state of mind similar to PTSD and is often referred to as Legal Abuse Syndrome.
Legal abuse refers to the use of a legal system to cause mental distress to another person, whether that abuse is in the form of a threat to take legal action or in the context of a hearing or otherwise legitimate case. This type of abuse is largely psychological and emotional in nature, and not typically physical, although it can lead to physical consequences as a result of improper legal outcomes. Legal abuse can also lead to a state of mind somewhat similar to PTSD, in which a person feels helpless and is left with residual psychic trauma.
One of the most common and potentially destructive forms of legal abuse is the use of the legal system to harass or distress another person. This type of legal abuse can involve someone bringing an unfounded civil suit against another person and using the hearing to raise issues that may damage the defendant’s reputation without presenting any real evidence to support the plaintiff’s claims. Such lawsuits are often referred to as “vexatious litigation” and have no real purpose other than to launch an attack against another person.
Legal abuse can also involve using legal threats of action as a means of intimidating another person. Someone may threaten legal action against another person in the hope that the mere threat will be enough to achieve an end result beneficial to the threater. This is especially abusive if the action is threatened against someone who is financially poor, as the person threatened often fears the financial obligations involved in a legal dispute. Legal abuse can also result from the actions of those in the legal system during an otherwise lawful hearing, such as a lawyer who is friends with a judge and uses the friendship to influence a decision.
This type of abuse can result in mental trauma that is often referred to as Legal Abuse Syndrome (LAS). LAS is often viewed as a form of long-term trauma that continues to cause a person distress even after the initial incident of abuse has ended. Someone who is the victim of legal abuse through vexatious litigation, for example, may end up distrusting lawyers or the legal system in general. This can result in a sense of paranoia or depression due to feelings of helplessness, and can ultimately exacerbate the legal issue that was the initial cause of the abuse.
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