Without legal assistance, survivors of domestic and sexual violence face profound barriers on their pathways to safety, justice, and healing. While access to legal representation is key to achieving safety and self-sufficiency—national studies show access to an attorney can increase survivors’ likelihood of obtaining a protective order from 32% to 86%—this need remains unmet for many survivors.
Our Civil Legal Services Program addresses the justice gap and provides services directly to survivors disparately affected by poverty and civil legal issues. This focused initiative provides survivors with legal advice specifically for contested protective orders.
A survivor can file a petition for a protective order against an abuser. This protection can be requiring an abuser to stop contacting a survivor, ordering an abuser out of the home, forbidding an abuser from entering the survivor’s home, providing a survivor temporary custody of children, etc. After the petition is filed, a court judge will determine if the petition suggests the person was abused and if there is threat of future harm. If the judge decides the petition meets the criteria, the survivor will be issued a protective order.
After the protective order is served to the abuser, they have 30 days to object. If the abuser objects, the court schedules a contested hearing where the survivor must bring evidence of the abuse. If the judge finds that the participant meets the criteria for a protective order based on the evidence provided, the protective order will remain in place.
According to data from Clackamas County Circuit Courts, less than one third of survivors had legal representation at contested protection order hearings held from 2019-2021. In addition, the court system can be confusing and overwhelming for survivors, especially for those with limited English proficiency and/or who grapple with PTSD, extreme stress, disabilities, and, for some, traumatic brain injuries sustained from the abuse they are fleeing.
Legal representation can mean the difference between achieving safety or experiencing further abuse. Self-represented survivors who do not have the means or access to an attorney often lose contested protection order hearings when their abuser has legal representation, which is why legal representation is so important.
