How To Set Up A Restraining Order

Ask for a Restraining Guild

To ask for a domestic violence restraining order there are several steps you lot accept to take. But first make certain that:

A restraining order is right for you. Read Can a Domestic Violence Restraining Order Help Me? (Grade DV-500-INFO | audio).
Y'all qualify for a domestic violence restraining gild. You and the person you lot desire to restrain must be:
- married or registered domestic partners,
- divorced or separated,
- dating or used to date,
- living together or used to live together,
- parents together of a kid, OR
- closely related (parent, child, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, in-police).
You lot get legal help from a local domestic violence bureau in your county.

Once y'all are sure you qualify for a domestic violence restraining order, you lot are ready to make full out the forms (or have a lawyer or domestic violence clinic assistance you with the forms). If you are not sure yous qualify, ask your local domestic violence agency. Your courtroom'due south family police force facilitator or cocky-help center may also be able to help you lot with the restraining social club.

If y'all live in an indian tribal community or reservation with a tribal court, you may be able to get assistance. Click to find a list of California tribal courts. And click to detect domestic violence resource in your tribal customs.

Filing a Request for a Restraining Club

STEP 1. Fill Out Your Court Forms and Fix to File

STEP 2. File Your Court Forms With the Court

Pace three. "Serve" Your Papers on the Restrained Person

Step four. Get Set and Go to Your Courtroom Hearing

Footstep 5. After the Court Hearing

Footstep 1. Fill Out Your Courtroom Forms and Ready to File

i. Read How Practise I Ask for a Temporary Restraining Order? ( Form DV-505-INFO )
This form is also available in Castilian, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

2. Fill out your restraining order forms
Fill out:

Confidential CLETS Information (Form CLETS-001)
Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Social club (Form DV-100);
Notice of Court Hearing (Class DV-109); and
Temporary Restraining Order (CLETS — TRO) (Form DV-110).

You may also need these forms if you need more space to describe why yous need the restraining order:

Description of Abuse (Form DV-101); or
Boosted Folio (Form MC-020).

If you want to ask for the other side to pay your lawyer'due south fees, read the instructions to ask for lawyer'due south fees in domestic violence cases. If you desire to inquire the court to give you control or rights over a prison cell phone number and account, click for more information.

3. Other forms you may need to fill out
If you accept children with the person you want protection from and want a custody and visitation social club, or want to change the i you already have, brand sure you check the appropriate boxes on Item 12 on Class DV-100 AND fill out:

Request for Child Custody and Visitation Orders (Grade DV-105) and attach it to the Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Social club (Form DV-100);
AND
Child Custody and Visitation Club (Course DV-140) and adhere to the Temporary Restraining Guild (Form DV-110).
If it applies to your instance, besides fill out Request for Order: No Travel With Children (Form DV-108).

If you desire child support, make sure yous check the appropriate boxes on Item xiii on Class DV-100 AND fill out:

Read Which Fiscal Grade — FL-155 or FL-150? (Form DV-570) to find out if you tin can use the simpler Form FL-155.

If you are the spouse or domestic partner of the person you lot want protection from, and you want to enquire for spousal, partner, or family support, fill out:

Income and Expense Proclamation (Class FL-150 | video instructions ) and attach to the Asking for Domestic Violence Restraining Order (Form DV-100).

4. Fill out your court'due south local forms (if any)
Enquire your local court clerk if there are local forms you have to fill out. Some courts likewise have forms on their website. Click to discover your local court'due south website.

5. Have your forms reviewed
If your court'due south family law facilitator or self-help center helps people with restraining orders, ask them to review your paperwork. They can make certain you lot filled it out properly before you lot move ahead with your case. Even if they cannot assist you with the restraining order forms, they can help you with the child support and spousal/partner support forms.

6. Make at least 5 copies of all your forms
One copy will be for you; another copy will be for the person you want protection from. The extra copies volition exist for other protected people or for y'all to keep in a condom place. The original is for the court. (You only need one copy of the CLETS-001.)

IMPORTANT: Your restraining order paperwork will go to the restrained person in your instance and he or she will get a take a chance to see everything yous write. If you are staying somewhere you do not want the restrained person to know virtually and you want to proceed the address confidential, do NOT write it on these papers. You can utilise a programme chosen "Safe at Habitation" that gives you a secure accost to use for your court papers (or for banking and other things) where you can however get your courtroom papers without having to reveal your confidential address. Click to learn well-nigh Rubber at Home.

Step 2. File Your Court Forms With the Court

Once you accept filled out all your forms, y'all accept to file them with the court.
Follow these steps:

1. Take your forms to the courtroom clerk
The clerk will requite all your forms to the gauge. The judge will read your papers and brand a decision on whether or not to make the orders you are asking for. Ask the clerk when to return to see if the gauge made the orders you asked for. The judge must decide past the adjacent business mean solar day, only the exact time varies from court to court.

Sometimes the judge wants to talk to you. Or the estimate may desire you to requite more than data in writing. If so, the clerk will tell you lot.

2. Discover out if the estimate issued the temporary restraining order
Render to the courthouse when the clerk tells y'all to pick upward your paperwork. Expect over all the paperwork the clerk returns to you to meet:

If the judge signed the Temporary Restraining Social club (Form DV-110).
If the guess fabricated any changes to the orders you asked in your request.
When your court hearing is, on the Notice of Courtroom Hearing (Form DV-109). The court hearing is also the date your temporary social club runs out. If yous want to extend information technology, y'all must become to your hearing to get a permanent order.

3. File your forms
If the approximate signs the guild, the court clerk will file it. "File" means that the court clerk will make the gild an official part of the courtroom'due south record of your case. The clerk will continue the original for the court and give y'all the 5 copies stamped "Filed." If you lot need more copies, you tin can make them yourself.

In that location is NO FEE for filing a domestic violence restraining lodge.
If you lot practice not speak English well, ask the clerk for an interpreter for your hearing date. Do this every bit soon as you know when your court date volition be. Click to find out more almost court interpreters.
If you are deafened or hard-of-hearing or have some other disability, ask for an interpreter or other accommodation. Get more information for persons with disabilities and a grade to ask for an adaptation.
Find out if the clerk will transport a re-create of your restraining order to your local police department. If not, make sure you do information technology.

4. Distribute your copies of the temporary restraining order.

Keep ane copy with you lot, always. You may need to testify it to the law.
Keep another re-create in a safe identify.
Give a re-create to anyone else protected by the gild.
Leave copies at the places where the restrained person is ordered not to get (your school, work, etc.).
Requite a copy to the security officers in your apartment and office buildings.

Restraining orders get entered into a special estimator organization at the California Department of Justice. That way, police officers across the state tin can find out well-nigh your order. In many courts, the court will ship your order to the land calculator for you lot. But if your court does not do it, you must do it yourself.

If the approximate does NOT give you any or all of the orders you asked for

You tin can see if the judge denies your request for a temporary order, or office of your request, by looking at item 4 of the Find of Court Hearing (Grade DV-109).

Even if the judge did not brand all the temporary orders y'all asked for, you can all the same get to the court hearing and ask for those orders. The approximate may grant them at the courtroom hearing, even if he or she did non grant them every bit temporary orders earlier the hearing.

Simply if all or part of your request was denied, you can abolish the court hearing the judge wrote on your Class DV-109 and, basically, drib your restraining order case for now. You can refile your request at a later engagement.

To give up (waive) your right to this hearing and cancel it:

Fill up out and file a Waiver of Hearing on Denied Request for Temporary Restraining Order (Form DV-112).
Exercise Non continue with the rest of these steps. Exercise Non give a copy of your papers to the person you wanted protection from.
If you lot already gave a re-create of your papers to the other side, you have to also serve him or her with a re-create of your Form DV-112 so he or she knows that the court hearing has been canceled.
Read the instructions on Form DV-112 carefully.

Footstep three. "Serve" Your Papers on the Restrained Person

"Serving" ways that the other side must get copies of whatsoever newspaper you file with the court. In "service" a third person (NOT you) is the one who actually delivers the paperwork to the other side. The person who does this is called the "server" or "process server."

The server must:

Be 18 or older, and
Non exist protected past the orders.

Until the other side has been properly "served," the judge cannot brand whatsoever permanent orders. Remember, so far, you take a temporary restraining order, which runs out the day of your courtroom hearing unless the estimate extends it or gives you a "permanent" restraining order.

In domestic violence cases, a law enforcement officer may exist able to serve your restraining order papers for you. If they exercise, they will do it for complimentary.

Yous can as well hire a "process server," which is a business you pay to deliver courtroom forms. Search for "process serving" online or wait in the Yellowish Pages of your phone book.

For more help with service, read What Is "Proof of Personal Service"? (Form DV-200-INFO). And read the section on Service of Process.

To serve your papers, follow these steps:

one. Figure out WHEN y'all have to serve your papers by
You volition have to serve the papers on the restrained person past the borderline the judge writes on your papers. This is then that the restrained person has a few days to respond to your papers and prepare for court.

To notice your deadline for service:

Look at your court date on folio 1 of Form DV-109.
Look at the number of days written in particular 5 on page 2 of Grade DV-109.
Subtract the number of days in particular 5 from the court date. That is your borderline to serve your papers. (You tin can e'er serve before the borderline!)

2. Serve your papers on the restrained person
Have someone "serve" (give) the restrained person a copy of the society and other papers y'all filed. The papers must be delivered in person. You lot cannot send them by postal service. Make certain this is done earlier your deadline.

In addition to serving a re-create of your papers, too serve BLANK:

Response to Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Guild (Form DV-120)

And if y'all have children with the restrained person, also serve BLANK:

Request for Kid Custody and Visitation Orders (Form DV-105)
Income and Expense Declaration (Form FL-150 | video instructions )

iii. File your proof of service
Have your server fill out a Proof of Personal Service (CLETS) (Form DV-200) and requite it to y'all so y'all tin file it with the courtroom. This class tells the judge and law that the restrained person got a copy of the order and knows about it. It is very important your server fills out the Proof of Service correctly. If possible, take your court's family law facilitator or self-help center review it to brand certain it was filled out properly.

If your server is a police force enforcement officeholder or a process server, they may utilise a unlike proof of service class. If then, make sure it lists the forms served, engagement papers were served, where they were served, and fourth dimension of service.
Make 5 copies of the Proof of Service later on the server gives information technology to you.
Then, file the original and copies with the court clerk before your hearing. The clerk will keep the original and requite you dorsum the copies stamped "Filed." Take a copy to your hearing.
Keep i re-create with yous (together with your restraining society) AT ALL times. Put the other copies with the temporary restraining order copies you have distributed.

If the restrained person was Not served

The restrained person must exist served before the hearing. If the restrained person was non served, you can ask the judge to extend the temporary restraining order until a new court date to requite you more time to serve your papers. Read How to Ask for a New Hearing Appointment (Form DV-115-INFO) for detailed instructions.

Yous volition demand a Asking to Continue Hearing (Grade DV-115) to inquire the approximate for a new court appointment. Practise this before or at your hearing. (If you wait until after the hearing, you accept to commencement from the very commencement.) If the judge signs this order, the restraining social club will last until the new hearing date.

To ask for an extension on the restraining order and new court hearing date:

Fill out a Request to Proceed Hearing (Class DV-115) and items 1 and ii of the Social club on Request to Proceed Hearing (Form DV-116).
Accept the gauge sign Grade DV-116 (at the hearing) or give information technology to the clerk (before the hearing) to give to the judge to sign.
File the signed Order on Request to Continue Hearing (Form DV-116) and Asking to Continue Hearing (Course DV-115) with the clerk.
Adhere them to your other court papers and get the restrained person served following the same directions as with the temporary restraining club papers at the get-go of this Step 3.
Brand sure your server fills out a Proof of Personal Service (CLETS) (Form DV-200) and gives information technology to you. File your Proof of Service.
Requite a "Filed" re-create of Course DV-116 to your local police and to everyone who has a copy of your temporary restraining order.
Bring a copy to your hearing.

Step iv. Become Ready and Go to Your Court Hearing

Become Ready for Your Hearing

This department will tell you how to get prepare for your hearing. Read Get Fix for the Restraining Order Court Hearing (Course DV-520-INFO) for more information.

Be prepared:

Accept documents that aid prove the corruption. Take 2 copies of all documents and filed forms, including the Proof of Service. Some of the documents that can help your case may be:
- Photos;
- Medical or law reports;
- Damaged property;
- A threatening alphabetic character, email or telephone messages.
Take the Restraining Order Later on Hearing (Guild of Protection) (Class DV-130) to your courtroom hearing. Endeavor to fill out equally much of the course as you can, but practice not fill out the parts that bargain with what the judge orders.
Yous tin can take a friend or relative (a back up person), just that person must not talk for y'all in court.
You can have a witness to help support your example. Witnesses may or may not be allowed to speak. But y'all tin bring a written statement of what the witness saw or heard. You must file and serve witness statements at the aforementioned time that you filed your request for the restraining order.
If you do not speak English well, ask the courtroom to give you an interpreter to help you. You should practice this equally before long as you know when your courtroom engagement will be, simply even if you did not do it earlier, ask at your courtroom date. Click to observe out more well-nigh court interpreters.
Most courtrooms do non allow children. Ask if there is a children's waiting room in the courthouse earlier your hearing date.

Do non miss your hearing!
If you miss it, the restraining orders volition end and you will accept to showtime from the beginning.

Get there thirty minutes early on:

Discover the courtroom.
When the courtroom opens, get in and tell the clerk or officeholder that you lot are present.
If you are afraid of the restrained person, tell the officer.
Sentinel the other cases so you will know what to do.
When your name is called, become to the front end of the court.
Your hearing may concluding just a few minutes or upwardly to an hour.

Practice what you want to say:

Make a listing of the orders you want and practice saying them. Practise not take more than 3 minutes to say what you desire.
If you go nervous at the hearing, just read from your list. Use that list to see if the judge has made every club you asked for.

Your court hearing

During your hearing, the judge may ask questions

Tell the truth. Speak slowly. You can read from your listing.
The restrained person or his or her lawyer may also ask y'all questions.
Give complete answers.
If yous do non sympathize, say "I don't sympathise the question."
If the restrained person lies in courtroom, wait until he or she finishes talking. And then tell the judge.
Speak simply to the judge unless it is your plough to ask questions.
When people are talking to the judge, wait for them to stop. Then you can inquire them questions nigh what they said.

If there are child custody and visitation issues in your case:

The judge will probably transport you to mediation. Mediation helps parents agree on a parenting plan that is best for the children.
If you lot are sent to mediation, the guess may make your temporary custody and visitation orders last until the next hearing or until another courtroom social club.
Either parent can ask to run into with the mediator separately.
If parentage (paternity) of your child with the restrained person has non been legally determined, and you and the restrained person hold to parentage of your child and agree to the court entering a judgment about parentage, you can employAgreement and Judgment of Parentage (Form DV-180) to constitute parentage of your child without having to start a separate parentage case.

The judge'south determination

At the end of the hearing, the gauge volition say what the orders are. The gauge may:

Give you lot the orders you asked for.
Give you lot some of the orders you lot asked for and not others.
Non give you whatever of the orders you asked for.
Postpone your case and requite yous a new court date. This means you lot have to come back another day. The judge can do this if:
- The restrained person needs time to get a lawyer or set up an answer.
- The judge wants more data.
- Your hearing is taking longer than planned.

Ask the clerk for the forms yous demand so you can brand certain that the temporary orders (if whatever) are extended until the new hearing date.

See Going to Court to read more than data about how to prepare for your court hearing.

STEP 5. After the Court Hearing

If the estimate problems a restraining order at the hearing, or whatever blazon of orders, you will have to prepare a written order for the judge to sign. In some courts, the clerk or other courtroom staff volition prepare this lodge. If so, make sure you lot review it very carefully to make sure it says exactly what the gauge orders and the clerk did not get out anything out. If in that location is a problem, tell the clerk right away.

If you have to fill out the social club, follow these steps:

Read pages 2 and three of Get Fix for the Court Hearing (Class DV-520-INFO).
Fill out the Restraining Order Afterward Hearing (Lodge of Protection) (CLETS) (Form DV-130), which will go your "permanent" restraining order.
- Make sure your Form DV-130 says what the guess has ordered. Review information technology to make certain you lot understand it.
- If you requested and the judge granted y'all the right to accept a prison cell phone number and account transferred to your name, click for instructions for transferring a jail cell phone account.
Adhere any other forms you may demand for other orders the judge fabricated.
Hither are some forms you lot may need (you will Not need all of these forms, just the ones that bargain with the orders the approximate fabricated):
- Child Custody and Visitation Order (Grade DV-140)
- Order: No Travel With Children (Course DV-145)
- Supervised Visitation and Exchange Order (Form DV-150)
Fill up out a Confidential CLETS Information (Course CLETS-001).
This grade does Non get filed. It is confidential. Information technology is used so that your restraining guild can be entered into a statewide computer organisation that lets the law know about your gild.
Give your Form DV-130 to the clerk (or the approximate) and the judge volition sign it. Brand certain the clerk files it. The clerk volition give you up to 5 copies.
Serve the restrained person with a re-create of Class DV-130 and any other attachments to the guild.
- If the restrained person was at the hearing, you can have him or her served with a copy of Grade DV-130 by mail. Ask the server to consummate the Proof of Service by Mail (CLETS) (Course DV-250) and give it dorsum to y'all so you can file it. Keep a copy of it with your restraining order at all times.
- If the restrained person was non at the hearing, but the judge's orders are the same as the temporary social club, yous tin can accept him or her served with a copy of Grade DV-130 past mail. Inquire the server to consummate the Proof of Service by Mail (CLETS) (Class DV-250) and give it back to you lot so you can file information technology. Keep a copy of it with your restraining order at all times.
- If the restrained person was not at the hearing, and the judge'south orders are unlike from the temporary order, you must have someone serve Form DV-130 in person, non past mail. Ask the server to consummate the Proof of Personal Service (CLETS) (Grade DV-200) and give it back to y'all so you can file information technology. Go on a copy of it with your restraining social club at all times.

Retrieve, you and other protected people CANNOT serve the orders. The sheriff or marshal can serve the orders for gratis.

Getting Help

Nearly cities or counties accept domestic violence help centers, shelters, or legal aid agencies that help people ask for a restraining order. These services are commonly free or very low cost. If you are the person asking for a restraining club, look for help in your area before yous endeavor to do it on your own.

Notice your local domestic violence legal help agencies
National Domestic Violence Hotline

1-800-799-7233
TDD: 1-800-787-3224
Call 24 hours a 24-hour interval, seven days a calendar week. They tin can help you lot in more than than 100 languages. It is free and private.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline links you to the following resources in your community:

Domestic violence shelters

Emergency shelters

Legal help

Social service programs

The website likewise provides a lot of data to help you and your children stay prophylactic and become protection.

Your court'south family law facilitator or self-help center. The facilitator or cocky-help center may be able to help you with the restraining gild, or at least with any kid support. The facilitator or self-help or spousal/partner support issues yous may accept.
California Section of Public Health Violence Prevention Resource Directory

This site lists help by county, like:

Women'due south shelters

Domestic violence programs

Victim witness assistance programs

Counseling services for victims of domestic violence

Crisis hotlines

Family unit Violence Prevention Fund
Covers many topics, including information on domestic violence as it relates to wellness care, immigration, children, and housing.
Resources for Family Violence in Tribal Communities in California
Provides resources for you to get assistance with domestic violence issues if y'all live in an indian tribal community or reservation.

More than Data and Resources

General Resources
Help for Children and Teens
Restraining Orders

________________________________________

General Resources

Section of Health Care Services
DHCS oversees comprehensive health care, including mental health and drug treatment programs, for about 13 1000000 Californians—nearly i-3rd of the state'southward population. Our largest program is Medi-Cal, the backbone of California'due south wellness-care safety net.

Can the Police force Assist Protect Me From Domestic Violence?
A State Bar of California pamphlet.

Domestic Violence & Employment: Job-guaranteed time off to obtain services
Factsheet prepared by the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco Employment Law Center.

Domestic Violence - Santa Clara County
This site has information nearly many domestic violence topics.

LawHelpCalifornia Domestic Violence
Step-by-step data on how to get a restraining order, links to domestic violence resources, domestic violence in the military, Internet security and more. (Select your county or enter your zero code for information specific to the surface area that you lot alive in.)

National Domestic Violence Hotline
Phone call 1-800-799-7233 (one-800-799-SAFE) or 1-800-787-3224 for TDD.
This hotline helps people all over the U.Due south. find information about shelters, legal advocacy and assistance programs, and social services programs in their area. It is open 24 hours a twenty-four hour period, 7 days a week. Get assistance in over 100 languages.

Working Together to Terminate the Violence
This online tool contains information and resource for both victims and those seeking to assistance them. All content, including a public service declaration, is available in both English and Castilian. Utilise this site to identify signs of domestic violence and for admission to organizations that can help.

San Francisco Law Library Family Constabulary Research Guide
This site has a listing of books about domestic violence topics.

Stalking Resource Center
The SRC's dual mission is to raise national awareness of stalking and to encourage the development and implementation of multidisciplinary responses to stalking in local communities beyond the land.

Supervised Visitation Network
This site may help y'all discover supervised visitation services in your county. Click on the "Service Providers Dir." link in the left-paw column to notice providers in California.

Help for Children and Teens

Appointment Rape Data
This publication was written by the National Crime Prevention Council.

Beloved: the practiced, the bad and the ugly

When Love Hurts: A Guide for Girls on Beloved, Respect and Abuse in Relationships
This website was developed by the Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Center (DVIRC) of Australia.

Restraining Orders

Can a Domestic Violence Restraining Social club Help Me?
Prepared by the Judicial Quango of California.

A Criminal Protective Order was issued against me.
Prepared past the Judicial Council of California.

How does a Criminal Protective Order help me?
Prepared by the Judicial Council of California.

How to Enforce Your Restraining Social club
Prepared by the Judicial Council of California.

How Can I Answer to a Asking for Domestic Violence Restraining Order?
Prepared by the Judicial Quango of California.

How Do I Plough In or Sell My Firearms?
Prepared by the Judicial Council of California