Your trusted partner for solutions.
Because real justice requires the whole story.
Who We Are
At Lumina Justice Collective, we aim to bridge the gap between trauma & law by illuminating the human experience, infusing research & data on trauma into legal arguments, and advocating for systems level change that ensures trauma history is meaningfully considered in courts. We know that when we apply our understanding of trauma, we achieve results that bring us closer to meaningfully, holistically, and humanly addressing the problems that "the system" is tasked with solving. Through employing precise strategy and leveraging deep expertise, we create space for meaningful solutions, real healing, and the mercy, empathy, and grace that every person deserves.
"We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it’s necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice,
and – perhaps – we all need some measure of unmerited grace."
-Bryan Stevenson, Attorney & Founding Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative
How We Can Help
Our expertise & offerings
Analysis & Strategy
Your Carefully Constructed Roadmap,
Tailored to You and Your Experiences
Through client interviewing, records assessment, and scientific data review, we partner with survivors and their lawyers to provide trauma-informed analysis of your case in civil and family law matters. We can help individuals to more comprehensively understand trauma impact and the effect on the survivor, develop a thorough investigation plan, identify scientific studies & data relevant to the case, connect to topic specific expert witnesses, and offer related legal strategy insights, helping you navigate the complexities of the legal system and ensure that your experience is understood and considered.
Program & Policy Development
Meaningfully constructing high impact programs,
law, & policy
We are committed to seeing holistic, trauma-informed representation in every facet of "the system" and in community-based organizations. Whether through developing programs that mitigate harm through innovative trauma-informed direct service provision, training programs to equip the broader community to embody these key principles and skills, legislative strategy, or systems level policy and infrastructure change, we can help. We will assist in developing targeted, innovative solutions that dismantle systemic barriers, elevate survivors' voices, and bring meaningful consideration of trauma to courts and to legal work.
Direct Representation &
Legal Case Assistance
Tireless Advocacy Meets Subject Matter Expertise:
Post-Conviction Criminal Defense
Family Law Appeals
Temporary Protective Orders
We are dedicated to providing representation throughout your journey. We provide representation in Temporary Protective Order matters. In our criminal defense practice, we primarily focus on appeals, post-conviction litigation, and parole. Additionally, we handle appeals in various family law matters. Ellie's exceptional understanding of the criminal legal system and of abuse & trauma, experience in both family and criminal law, and specialization in post-judgment matter uniquely posture her to handle each of these matters. We offer you a champion and fierce advocate to walk alongside you during all aspects of the process. As partners in telling your story, we will uplift your voice and hold your experiences with great care. We will ensure that you have an advocate in your corner who will offer results driven, high quality representation with applied subject matter expertise. Beyond that, we will fight for your voice to be heard, empower you, ensure that you feel supported, believed, and valued.
We also collaborate with attorneys to provide additional support to their cases through co-counsel representation, case reviews, legal research, analysis of abuse's role in a case, and strategy development.
Ellie Williams is a dedicated, fierce champion of survivors of abuse and trauma. Though she has a wealth of experience, her perhaps most important characteristic as a professional is her immense commitment to meaningful justice, healing, and hope for survivors and their communities. Ellie takes exceptional care of her clients, offering them nothing short of her fullest effort, precise & tireless advocacy, compassion & empathy, and her whole heart & soul. In addition to prioritizing strong outcomes, Ellie takes very seriously her duty to her survivors as individuals, demonstrating to them that they matter, uplifting their voices, and carefully but powerfully ensuring their stories are heard. She does this both through direct services to individual survivors and through her program development, consulting, and training work. When you work with Ellie, her greatest hope is that you will feel seen, heard, and valued, that you will feel cared for, and that you will feel that someone truly stepped up to the plate and fought for you.
Ellie has over a decade of experience working with survivors of abuse and trauma. A cum laude graduate of both Furman University and the University of Georgia School of Law, Ellie has dedicated the entirety of her career to serving survivors of abuse and trauma. From shelters and hospitals to family justice centers and courthouses, Ellie has experience working in all corners of the system and in a broad variety of roles and organizations serving survivors. At UGA Law, Ellie received the Jane W. Wilson Distinguished Law Fellowship in recognition of her academic success and dedication to family justice issues. As an attorney, Ellie has represented survivors in numerous complex criminal matters, family law matters, and protective order petitions. Before becoming an attorney, Ellie provided crisis intervention, case management, risk assessment, and support group facilitation services to survivors. She is also bilingual and has constructed programming aimed at serving survivors from immigrant communities and with limited English proficiency. Ellie is a certified Guardian Ad Litem and is certified to conduct the Jacqueline Campbell Danger Assessment.
Ellie is also a policy and thought leader. Most recently, she was one of the leaders who spearheaded the movement that led to the 2025 passage of the Georgia Survivor Justice Act, now recognized as the nation's "gold standard" for survivor justice legislation. She helped to draft the act, advocated for its passage with lawmakers, testified in the Georgia legislature, and led various advocacy efforts. She now helps to manage its implementation and trains individuals in Georgia on how to successfully advocate for survivors under this new law. She also regularly speaks and consults with practitioners across the country on how to effectively draft, pass, and implement survivor justice legislation, a trending national legislative issue. Ellie is a graduate of the Georgia Women's Policy Institute, a program of the YWCA of Greater Atlanta.
Ellie has also dedicated the entirety of her academic career studying criminology, abuse, violence, and trauma. She conducted research with the National Family Violence Law Center on parental alienation syndrome and the dynamics of abuse in divorce and custody cases, and she has conducted research on appellate issues in family violence cases in Georgia courts. She is a contributor to recent editions of the Georgia Domestic Violence Benchbook. In 2023, she published "Leaving Doesn't Mean Living: Analyzing the Case of Angela Vaughn" in the 51st Edition of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, examining the criminalization of survival in the context of international human rights law.
Ellie is a seasoned and nationally recognized speaker and trainer. She has provided training and developed materials and curricula on trauma-informed care for many years. Most recently, Ellie has traveled nationally and internationally to train on domestic violence, criminalized survival, trauma-informed care, and related policy reform. She has been quoted in publications such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. She has also been featured by national news outlets such as CBS Evening News.
Her years of true "in the trenches" with survivors provides her with unique perspective as a lawyer, giving her an exceptionally deep subject matter expertise. Most importantly, Ellie puts her whole heart and self into her work, believing to her core in the need for trauma-informed services, related systemic reform, and the value of survivors and their stories. She is truly humbled and considers it an immense privilege that survivors entrust her with their stories and allow her to walk alongside them through life's most difficult challenges each and every day.
