About

At Gillispie Law Firm, we represent child sexual abuse victims. More specifically, we sue child sexual predators and those who enable them to commit their crimes. Our goal is nothing short of decreasing the rate of child sexual abuse in Arkansas, one case at a time.

We view each case as a battle in a never-ending war against child sexual abuse in Arkansas. Each case has the potential to increase the deterrence factor for organizations who enable child sexual predators to abuse their victims. These organizations are most often churches, schools, youth organizations like Boy Scouts of America, daycares, residential treatment facilities, and group homes.

In each case that we accept, we offer the client an opportunity at obtaining justice for themselves. Justice, however, in the context of child sexual abuse, is not easily defined. We cannot make victims whole; nobody can. We can never give back what was taken from a child sexual abuse victim; nobody can. We cannot even promise healing or a return to happiness; we strive to do this and it is possible, but we cannot promise it.

Therefore, we view justice narrowly at Gillispie Law Firm. The justice we offer consists of the things we can in fact promise our clients.

We promise each client an opportunity at retribution, making sure that those responsible for the client’s suffering are exposed and held accountable to the greatest extent possible allowed under the law. It is an intolerable inequity for only the child victims to endure suffering when that suffering was directly caused by the depravity of their abuser and the indifference of those who had a duty to control the abuser. The bad actors must share in the suffering, which also functions as a deterrent.

We promise each client an opportunity to help decrease the chances that children in the future are sexually abused. Too often, the sexual predator and the organization who fostered him escape all consequences for their actions. When this happens, it makes it more likely that child sexual abuse will occur in the future. On the other hand, when bad actors suffer the terrible consequences that they so richly deserve, it serves to deter those similarly situated from allowing child sexual abuse to happen in the future.

In addition to deterrence, our methods for exposing hidden predators and making their enablers publicly accountable serve to educate the public about the widespread danger of child sexual abuse. This in turn teaches parents and caregivers to be more diligent in protecting children from this very real and prevalent threat to children in Arkansas. We cannot achieve this without our clients as partners.

We promise each client an opportunity at meaningful monetary compensation. Money will not, in and of itself, restore innocence, self-worth, or any of many other psychological losses that most child sexual abuse victims suffer. But money can pay for the mental health treatment needed in order to restore those things. Money can provide some compensation for the victim’s years of mental anguish and psychological suffering. Money, when transferred from the bad actor to the victim, can provide the victim with a sense of satisfaction and potentially even a semblance of peace. We strive in every case to obtain the absolute top dollar for each client, real life-changing money that can give the client the best chance possible at a fuller, happier, and healthier life.

We promise each client an opportunity at reclaiming control of their life story. For many child sexual abuse victims, the abuse is a dividing line in their narrative – there is their life before they were sexually abused and there is their life afterwards. Their lives following the abuse are irrevocably altered in enumerable negative ways through no fault or choice of their own. Because of this, they rightly feel deprived of their sense of agency and control over the direction of their lives.

We strive to give control back to our clients by empowering them to stand up for themselves and fight back against the sexual predators who abused them and against the enabling entities whose negligence and recklessness created the ability for the predator to commit the abuse – against organizations, whether they be churches or any other entity, who prioritized profit and the avoidance of negative publicity over the safety of the children in their care.

Our Mission

At Gillispie Law Firm, our mission is to get as much justice as possible for each of our clients, and, in the process, make Arkansas a safer place for children in the future.   

For us, each case is a battle in the war on child sexual abuse in Arkansas. While child sexual abuse can likely never be eradicated completely, its rate of occurrence can and must be decreased. It is our mission to do nothing short of that, making Arkansas a safer place for children in the future, one case at a time.