One of the most important things we do at the Law Office of Lisa Vance is to help people who are experiencing domestic violence to get protective orders. It’s not an easy or automatic process, but for those who fear for their safety and need what protective orders provide, we have the experience and the know-how to secure them.
The most important thing to do if you’re in a domestic violence situation is not to wait to act if a threat is being made. When you’re asking for protective orders, you’re telling the judge that you are concerned about an imminent threat to your safety. If the last incident of domestic violence occurred three months ago or a year ago, it doesn’t have the same import for a judge than if the last incident was a few days ago.
Also, it’s important to be forthcoming about everything that’s going on. Some people reporting domestic violence might not think an instance of being pushed out of the way registers as domestic violence–especially if there are incidents of being hit or kicked, for example–but it could be substantial enough to demonstrate a threat to your safety and convince a judge that protective orders are called for. Emotional abuse, including threats of violence, can also be significant enough to warrant action, especially if there’s a history of physical abuse accompanying it.
We understand that it can be hard to talk about and that there can be all sorts of emotions weighing on those who seek protective orders. But it’s important to talk about–for people who are experiencing domestic violence, it can be literally be a matter of life and death.
It’s also important to know, though, that you want to be sure that you need the level of protection that these orders give you. You’re depriving someone of Constitutional rights by issuing protective orders, and in meeting a judge’s test in doing that, your lawyer has to produce a number of documents in a shorter-than-usual time span. It is often more expensive and more intense a process than people think it will be, so when we prepare protective orders, we talk to clients to make sure that it’s a necessary step to take.
If it is, though, we most definitely will do what’s necessary to get a protective order into your hands. Protective orders can not only safeguard you in the short term, but can allow legal teams on both sides of the divorce to work at diffusing tensions and getting through a divorce as safely and as focused on post-divorce outcomes as possible.