Legal Help for Domestic Violence Victims

WomensLaw is the first and only free, 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 May 1, 2017 to July 31, 2017, more than 346,000 people accessed the life-saving information that is housed on WomensLaw.org. In the past three months (May through July 2017), we worked directly with 697 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:

• “Thank you so much for your thoughtful and comprehensive response. I find your response incredibly helpful and stress relieving. If it is okay with you, I may be in touch if I have further questions. I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your service and humanitarian work. I have no money whatsoever to consult with a lawyer because part of my abusive situation is financial. I was feeling rather hopeless about the legal side of things until I received your email. Thank you for providing me with a ray of hope.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, May 2017)

And:

• “Thank you so much for all of the information and advice. You answered all my questions and that helped very much. I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much for taking the time to write back.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, June 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 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 a source of great pride for us when someone lets us know that the information and attention that we have provided surpasses that which they have received from other places.  Here is one such reply that we received on the Email Hotline:

• “You have been more helpful, in just the few emails you have sent- than ANYONE has in the past 2 years! Thank you. God bless you.” (WomensLaw Email Hotline response, June 2017)

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 May and July 31, 2017, we made several updates - 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