Legal Help for Domestic Violence Victims

WomensLaw is the first and only free, legal resource for survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking that offers safety and legal information and resources in "plain language" in both English and Spanish. We are dedicated to empowering survivors and their advocates to make informed decisions about their options, safety, and legal remedies. 

From June 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022, 2,325,897 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org. This is an increase of 13% from the same period a year earlier.

During this same period (June 1, 2022 to October 13, 2022), we worked directly with 1,731 victims, survivors, and their friends, advocates, or family members through our Email Hotline. This unique hotline offers victims a direct line to ask a question of our attorneys and volunteers, who specialize in domestic violence and the law. We respond to every request as quickly as possible, but take time to respond thoughtfully and include individualized resources and information. We frequently correspond back and forth with the people who write in, and many are grateful for our assistance and support, as below:

Thank you for the information you shared and for your caring response. I am meeting with a new attorney this week and your input is helping me to prepare. I am very grateful for WomensLaw. It is such a needed and empowering resource. Thanks again for your work. (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, June 2022)

And:

I received very detailed answers to my questions and I hope that I will find what I wanted and help me.  Thank you very much, it's more clear to me what I could do. (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, September 2022)

We answer questions and provide our expertise on a wide range of topics - including custody, divorce, relocation, and more. Often, victims or their loved ones are writing in to us to get some basic legal information about their situation when they cannot find legal representation.  Although we do not provide legal advice, we can explain relevant laws that may help the victim to make an informed decision.

It is especially rewarding when someone tells us that we explained the information in a way that was easy to understand and lets us know that the information helped them feel supported. Here is one such reply that we received on the Email Hotline:

Me es de mucha ayuda tu email, A veces el camino es difícil pero apoyada con mujeres como tú, me da fuerza y ya no me siento sola. Gracias.

(WomensLaw Email Hotline response, July 2022)
Translation: Your email is very helpful. Sometimes the road is difficult but supported by women like you, it gives me strength and I no longer feel alone. Thank you.

We are constantly updating our website (http://www.WomensLaw.org) – making changes and additions to it daily. Our priority is to make sure that the legal information that we have is current with changes in the laws and to continue to add new information that would be useful for victims and survivors of abuse. Between June 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022, we made dozens of updates, such as:

• Based on a 2022 amendment to the law, we updated two questions in our Missouri Orders of Protection due to Domestic Violence section and one question in our Missouri Orders of Protection due to Stalking or Sexual Assault section to clarify that if a judge orders the abuser to pay the victim’s attorney’s fees, it can cover the time period before bringing the court case, during the court case, and after the entry of judgment.
• In our Minnesota Divorce page, we added information to Can my alimony award be changed? about additional reasons that an alimony award can be changed. We also better explained cohabitation and the factors related to it that a judge will consider. The statute regarding modification of orders was also added to the Selected Minnesota Statutes page.
• We updated contact information for 29 courthouses on our New Mexico Courthouse Locations page and added seven new courthouses in English and Spanish.
• Based on June 2022 legislative updates that added risk protection orders as a reason for firearm prohibition, and put timeframes for convictions on certain misdemeanors, we revised three questions in our Connecticut State Gun Laws section in English. Spanish coming soon.
• We added two Rockland County organizations to our New York Legal Assistance page, Center for Safety & Change and Proyecto Faro, in English and Spanish.
• We translated into Spanish the changes made in the following questions of our Arkansas Custody page:

o   Who can get custody?

o   What is joint custody? Is joint custody favored in Arkansas? 

o   Can a parent who committed domestic violence get custody or visitation? 

o   Can a parent who is a registered sex offender, or who lives with one, get custody or visitation? 

• We added the crimes of harassment, harassing communications, and dissemination of personally identifying information to our Kentucky Crimes page and to our Selected Kentucky Statutes page.
• In our Alaska State Gun Laws section, we revised three questions to clarify that a person cannot get a concealed handgun permit if s/he has a final protection order that meets federal requirements or if s/he was convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor. Changes made in English; Spanish coming soon.
• We translated in Spanish our Kansas Suing an Abuser for Money page.
• In our North Carolina Custody section, we revised Can I get an emergency order for temporary custody? to clarify that the standard we listed for getting an emergency ex parte custody order only applies if it would change the living arrangements of a child or change custody. Changes made in English and Spanish.
• In our Colorado Housing Law section, we revised Who is protected by these housing laws? What protections do these laws offer? to add the definitions for how the law defines victims of domestic violence, domestic abuse, unlawful sexual behavior, and stalking. Changes made in English and Spanish.

… And these are just a handful of the changes and improvements that we made over the past three months! See everything we did on WomensLaw.org on our What’s New page: https://www.womenslaw.org/about/news

Thank you for supporting WomensLaw and the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Stay in the loop! Sign up for occasional action alerts and updates from NNEDV at: NNEDV.org/signup

Links:

• WomensLaw Website
• NNEDV's Website