Legal Help for Domestic Violence Victims

WomensLaw is the first and only free, a legal resource for survivors of domestic & 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 February 1, 2017 to April 30, 2017, 335,738 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org

In the past three months (February through April 2017), we worked directly with 745 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 women and men who write in, and many are grateful for our assistance and support, as below:

“I really appreciate your help. I appreciate all of your info it is very helpful and it will take me some time to read and research all of it but what I have read so far is great and very helpful. Thank you for being there for people like me.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, March 2017)

 And:

 “Thank you so much for your kind, helpful, and quick reply. You have mentioned many options resources I had not considered. I am exploring those now. My situation is desperate and I feel hopeless. I really appreciate the time you took to respond and offer such good advice.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, February 2017)

 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 into 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. Even though our website is called “WomensLaw.org,” we also equally help men who write in. Here is one recent reply that we received on the Email Hotline:

 “Thank you for your reply... I’m very proud of your website that it doesn’t exclude fathers...” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, April 2017) 

We are constantly updating our website 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 February and April 2017, we made several updates: 

• We re-wrote the Puerto Rico Protection from Stalking Orders page and Orders of Protection for the Welfare and Protection of Children in English and Spanish. We also added 8 related statutes to our Estatutos (Statutes) page.
• We updated and edited our Sexual Assault/Rape page in English and Spanish.
• In our Alaska Domestic Violence Protective Orders page, we rewrote the information in What is the legal definition of domestic violence? and in the section called Steps for getting a domestic violence protective order. We also added a new question called What types of domestic violence protective orders are there? How long do they last? and information about emergency orders that a police officer can file on behalf of a victim.
• On our Missouri Orders of Protection due to Domestic Violence page, we added information about transferring a wireless phone number to the victim of abuse in How can an order of protection due to domestic violence help me?
• We added information to our Illinois State Gun Laws page in English and Spanish about the relation between firearms and stalking no contact orders. 
• We revised all of the information on our Maryland Domestic Violence Protective Orders page and added 3 new questions.
• Based on recent additions to New Jersey laws, we added information in English and Spanish to our Sexual Assault Restraining Orders page, our Domestic Violence Restraining Orders and we added the crime of cyber harassment to our Crimes page and Statutes page.  
• In our Utah Restraining Orders section, we added a Child Protective Orders page and two corresponding statutes.

…and these are just a handful of the changes and improvements that we made over the past three months! See them all here on our What’s New page: http://womenslaw.org/simple.php?sitemap_id=63

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