Carol Tracy, Esquire
Executive Director, Womens Law Project (WLP)

            Carol Tracy, Esq., is the Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project (WLP), a public interest law center committed to improving the legal, economic and health status of women and their families through high-impact litigation, policy development, public education and systems reform. Ms. Tracy’s recent work has involved several initiatives regarding violence against women, including leading a major reform effort on the police handling of sex crimes in Philadelphia. As a result of this work Mayor John Street appointed her, along with former Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, to co-chair a Domestic Violence Task Force to improve the city’s law enforcement and health and social services response to domestic violence. She has also been appointed the City’s Office Behavioral Health Trauma Task Force to create a plan to develop a trauma-informed system of care in Philadelphia.

            Ms. Tracy has been engaged in a variety of efforts to improve the Philadelphia’s civil and criminal court’s response to domestic violence, with a strong emphasis on Family Court and issued a report, Justice in the Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia Family Court: A Report to the Community (2002), which, among others things, called for a new unified Family Court facility. The WLP, with the Support Center for Child Advocates, also co-authored “Deciding Child Custody When There is Domestic Violence: A Benchbook for Pennsylvania Courts.”

            Ms. Tracy is also a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Research.