Melanie Randall is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario. She has undertaken research and educational work on issues relating to violence against women and the law. Her published work has addressed legal remedies for sexual violence, including legal constructions of “ideal victims” in domestic violence criminal cases, legal misunderstandings of women’s responses to violence and abuse, comparative approaches to asylum claims based on gender persecution in refugee law, and using the law to seek state accountability for violence against women. She is co-writing the first Canadian Bench Book on domestic violence and the law for judges, which will accompany the National Judicial Institute’s educational program, and is entitled “Violence and Abuse in Intimate Relationships: Enhancing Judicial Skills in Cases involving Domestic Violence.”