Domestic Violence · Family & Criminal Courts
Domestic Violence
Restraining orders decide far more than whether two people stay apart. This office represents both sides — and has tried hundreds of these hearings.
A domestic violence restraining order is granted on a standard of proof most people find startling once it is explained to them, and it can reshape a parent's relationship with their children for the upcoming years.
Bali Law Offices represents people seeking protection and people defending against allegations. That may sound like two opposing assignments. In a courtroom it is one assignment seen from opposite chairs — the same statute, the same burden, the same bench officer weighing two accounts against each other — and Mr. Bali has handled it from both sides in hundreds of contested long cause hearings.
That experience is why clients on either side of the caption retain this office. Years spent proving these cases establish exactly what a petition must contain to withstand scrutiny. The same years spent defending them establish precisely where an overstated one comes apart. Neither perspective is available to a practitioner who has only ever done half the work.
What follows is the law that governs these proceedings in California family court and what it means in practice — offered here because a client who understands the framework participates in their own case far more effectively than one who does not. If you are reading this because something happened last night, call the office. The timeline in these matters is measured in days.
Domestic Violence
What the law counts as abuse.
Abuse under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act is considerably broader than most people assume — and considerably broader than the popular image of it. That breadth cuts in both directions: it reaches conduct that leaves no bruise, and it sweeps in behavior many respondents never imagined a court could enjoin. Appellate courts have reversed trial judges for looking only for violence.
Physical Harm and Threats
Intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause bodily injury; sexual assault; or placing a person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury.
Fam. Code § 6203(a)Abuse Without Injury
The statute is explicit: abuse is not limited to the actual infliction of physical injury or assault. A case with no bruise and no emergency room visit is still a case.
Fam. Code § 6203(b)Enjoinable Conduct
Molesting, attacking, striking, stalking, threatening, battering, harassing, telephoning, contacting directly or indirectly, and destroying personal property.
Fam. Code § 6320(a)Disturbing the Peace
Conduct that destroys the mental or emotional calm of the other party — whether committed directly or indirectly, including through technology and electronic communications.
Fam. Code § 6320(c)Coercive Control
A pattern of behavior that in purpose or effect unreasonably interferes with a person's free will and personal liberty. Recognized by statute since 2021 and now a regular feature of these hearings.
Fam. Code § 6320(c)Isolation and Deprivation
Isolating a person from friends, relatives, or other sources of support, or depriving them of basic necessities.
Fam. Code § 6320(c)Financial and Digital Control
Controlling, regulating, or monitoring a person's movements, communications, daily behavior, finances, economic resources, or access to services.
Fam. Code § 6320(c)Reproductive Coercion
Control over a person's reproductive autonomy through force, threat of force, or intimidation.
Fam. Code § 6320(c)The Burden of Proof
Why these hearings are decided by a margin.
The Domestic Violence Prevention Act authorizes a restraining order where the evidence shows, to the satisfaction of the court, reasonable proof of a past act or acts of abuse. The court may issue an order based solely on the affidavit or testimony of the person requesting it.
The phrase most people expect to find in that statute — "preponderance of the evidence" — does not appear there at all. It comes from the Evidence Code, which supplies the default civil standard: except as otherwise provided by law, the burden of proof requires proof by a preponderance of the evidence. California courts read the DVPA's "reasonable proof" threshold through that lens.
In plain terms: more likely than not. Not beyond a reasonable doubt, not clear and convincing — simply more probable than not. This is a materially lower threshold than the one that governs the criminal courthouse across the street, and it is the reason the same set of facts can produce different results in the two buildings.
Two further rules compound that margin. The DVPA imposes no corroboration requirement and no heightened standard of specificity — a Court of Appeal reversed a denial premised on exactly that error. And the court weighs the alleged conduct in the context of the whole relationship rather than as isolated incidents. Taken together, a case can be established on testimony alone, assessed for credibility, in the round.
Which is why these hearings turn on preparation rather than paperwork. Many arrive with no photographs, no police report, and no medical records — two people describing the same evening in irreconcilable terms. The difference between outcomes is the chronology assembled beforehand, the corroboration located where it exists, the discipline of the direct examination, and the cross-examination that follows. These proceedings receive the preparation of a trial in this office, because that is precisely what they are.
Fam. Code § 6300Evid. Code § 115Fam. Code § 6200 et seq.In re Marriage of F.M. & M.M. (2021) 65 Cal.App.5th 106Hatley v. Southard (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 579Both Sides of the Caption
Whichever side you are on.
These are not two different skills. They are the same hearing understood from opposite chairs — and this office has sat in both, several hundred times.
If you are seeking protection
Petitioner · Requesting party
- Immediate relief. A temporary order can issue the same day, before the other party is notified, and a request cannot be denied solely because notice was not given.
- Building the record. Messages, photographs, medical records, financial documents, witnesses, and a clear chronology — the corroboration that converts an account into a finding.
- Delay is not fatal. The time since the most recent act of abuse is not by itself determinative; the court weighs the totality of the circumstances.
- Conduct short of violence counts. Abuse is not limited to physical injury — disturbing the peace and coercive control are grounds in their own right, and appellate courts have reversed judges who looked only for violence.
- Custody protection. A finding of abuse triggers a statutory presumption against custody to the perpetrator.
- Fees. On request, the court shall award attorney's fees and costs to a prevailing petitioner.
If you have been accused
Respondent · Responding party
- Understand the real stakes. An order is not merely a direction to stay away. It reaches your firearms, your record in a statewide law enforcement database, your children, and often your employment, licensing, or immigration position.
- Test the elements. Not every painful separation is abuse within the meaning of the statute. Whether the alleged conduct actually falls within the Act is a question worth litigating.
- Self-defense and context. Who was the aggressor, and what preceded the incident, are central — and a mutual order requires detailed findings that both parties acted as primary aggressors and neither acted primarily in self-defense.
- Frivolous petitions. Where a respondent shows by a preponderance that the request was frivolous or solely intended to abuse, intimidate, or cause unnecessary delay, the court may award that respondent fees and costs.
- If a finding is made, it is not the end. The custody presumption is rebuttable by design, and the statute itself sets out what the court must weigh. Clients who maintain a consistent relationship with their children and complete what the statute asks are frequently restored to a full parenting role.
This office does not decide who deserves the order. That is the court's function, and the court performs it on a razor-thin margin. Our function is to ensure that the account the court hears from our client is the complete one.
What Follows
What a restraining order actually does.
Clients on both sides tend to misjudge this — some underestimating what an order carries, others assuming it forecloses far more than it does. Both misjudgments are costly. Here is the accurate picture.
The custody presumption.
Where the court finds that a parent seeking custody has perpetrated domestic violence within the previous five years, a rebuttable presumption arises that awarding that parent sole or joint physical or legal custody is detrimental to the child's best interest. It is the most consequential thing that happens in a domestic violence hearing, and it is why these matters are prepared here as trials rather than appearances.
It is also — and this is the part rarely explained properly — a presumption, not a judgment. The Legislature wrote the route through it into the same statute. A separate section below sets out what that route looks like in practice.
Fam. Code § 3044§§ 3011, 3020A criminal conviction crosses over automatically.
This is the intersection clients most often fail to see coming. Where a parent has been convicted within the previous five years — after trial or on a plea of guilty or no contest — of a crime against the other party falling within the Family Code's definition of domestic violence, that conviction satisfies the finding requirement in family court. The family judge does not retry the question. The presumption follows from the conviction itself.
The consequence is that decisions made in a criminal case — including pleas that appear advantageous in isolation — reach directly into a custody file. Where both matters are live, this office coordinates them as a single strategy rather than two separate cases, because in every way that matters to a parent, they are.
Fam. Code § 3044(d)(1)Fam. Code § 6211Firearms.
A person subject to a protective order may not own, possess, purchase, or receive a firearm or ammunition while the order is in effect. Surrender is required immediately on request of a law enforcement officer, or otherwise within 24 hours, and proof of surrender must be filed with the court within 48 hours. Failing to file that receipt is itself a violation of the order.
Fam. Code § 6389How long it lasts — and how it returns.
Personal conduct, stay-away, and residence exclusion orders issued after a noticed hearing may run up to five years. At the end of that term the order may be renewed — for five years or more, or permanently, in the court's discretion — without any showing of further abuse since the original order issued.
Renewal is not automatic, and it is not a rehearing of the original case. California courts ask whether the protected party holds a reasonable apprehension of future abuse, judged objectively — and the Court of Appeal confirmed in 2025 that an order may be renewed on continuing fear arising from the original incidents alone. Both the request and the opposition are their own litigation, and both warrant proper preparation.
Fam. Code § 6345Ritchie v. Konrad (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 1275Navarro v. Cervera (2025) 108 Cal.App.5th 229The record it creates.
Orders are entered into California's statewide law enforcement database, where they are visible to any officer who runs your name. Depending on your circumstances, an order can also carry consequences for professional licensing, employment, housing, and immigration status — consequences that arrive long after the hearing is over and are rarely discussed in the courtroom where they are decided.
California Authority
Decisions that shape these hearings.
A short survey of published California appellate authority that recurs in domestic violence litigation — offered so that clients on either side can see the framework their case will be decided within.
The Court of Appeal reversed a denial that had rested on a lack of specificity and corroboration, holding that the DVPA imposes neither a corroboration requirement nor a heightened standard of specificity. It also recognized controlling conduct — including taking a party's phone — as abuse, and rejected the notion that physical separation substitutes for the protection an order provides.
A denial was reversed where the trial court had confined its attention to violence. A pattern of control and isolation — restricting access to money, communication, and transportation — is actionable abuse, and the alleged conduct is to be assessed in the context of the relationship as a whole rather than incident by incident.
The governing framework for renewal: the question is whether the protected party holds a reasonable apprehension of future abuse, assessed objectively rather than by the subjective fear of the requesting party alone.
Recent authority confirming that a restraining order may be renewed on the protected party's continuing fear arising from the original incidents, without proof of further abuse — and that a knowing violation of an existing order is to be taken seriously by the trial court.
The Path Forward
Restoring parental rights.
A finding of domestic violence is not the end of a parent's relationship with their children. It is a starting position the law expressly permits a parent to move.
The presumption in section 3044 is rebuttable by design, and the Legislature placed the route through it in the statute itself. That is unusual, and it is worth understanding: the court is directed to consider whether custody is nonetheless in the child's best interest, and then whether the parent has completed a batterer's intervention program, completed substance abuse counseling or a parenting class where appropriate, complied with probation or parole and with any protective orders, refrained from further violence, and complied with firearm restrictions. The court must state its reasons on the record.
Read plainly, that is a checklist — not a wall. Clients who follow this office's guidance, which is built directly on that statutory checklist, and who maintain a consistent, continuous relationship with their children, are frequently restored to a full parenting role. What forecloses that outcome is rarely the presumption itself. It is drift: months of missed visits, unstarted programs, and an empty record when the matter returns to court.
This is the least glamorous part of a domestic violence practice and, measured across a client's life, frequently the most valuable. It is also where the effort a firm is willing to invest becomes visible — sustained over months, coordinated with any criminal matter, and documented continuously so that when the question of custody returns, the answer has already been built.
Fam. Code § 3044(b)§§ 3011, 3020Questions
Asked often.
Do I really need an attorney for a restraining order hearing?
Consider what is decided in a single afternoon: a parent's access to their children in the years ahead, the right to possess a firearm, a listing in a statewide law enforcement database, and — depending on circumstances — professional licensing, employment, and immigration position. These hearings are conducted as evidentiary trials, with direct examination, cross-examination, and the rules of evidence. Both sides deserve representation that treats them accordingly.
There is no police report and no photographs. Is there still a case?
Frequently, yes — for both parties. The standard is proof by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not, and the court may issue an order based solely on the testimony or affidavit of the requesting party. The DVPA contains no corroboration requirement and no heightened standard of specificity, and the Court of Appeal has reversed a denial resting on that error. Cases without physical evidence are decided on credibility, chronology, and consistency, assessed across the relationship as a whole. That is precisely why preparation matters more here than in almost any other family court proceeding.
There is a criminal case as well. Does that affect the family court?
Directly, and more than most people expect. A conviction within the previous five years — after trial or on a plea of guilty or no contest — for a crime against the other party that falls within the Family Code's definition of domestic violence satisfies the finding requirement in family court. The family judge does not revisit the question, and the custody presumption follows from the conviction itself. This is why a plea that looks sensible viewed only through the criminal case can prove costly in the custody file, and why this office coordinates the two matters as one strategy wherever both are pending.
Can the court issue orders against both of us?
Only under strict conditions. A mutual order requires that both parties personally appear, that each present written evidence of abuse on the mandatory Judicial Council form — evidence submitted in a responsive pleading does not satisfy this — and that the court make detailed findings that both parties acted as primary aggressors and that neither acted primarily in self-defense. Mutual orders are requested far more often than they are properly granted.
How long does an order last, and can it come back?
Orders issued after a noticed hearing may run up to five years. They may then be renewed for five years or more, or permanently, in the court's discretion — and, critically, without any showing of further abuse since the original order. California courts assess renewal by asking whether the protected party holds a reasonable apprehension of future abuse.
The allegations against me are false. What can I do?
Defend the hearing properly, and understand that the law contemplates exactly this situation. Where a respondent establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that the petition was frivolous or solely intended to abuse, intimidate, or cause unnecessary delay, the court may award that respondent attorney's fees and costs. The remedy exists — but it is available only to a respondent who actually prevails, which is a matter of preparation.
It has been a long time since anything happened. Is it too late to ask for an order?
Not necessarily. By statute, the length of time since the most recent act of abuse is not by itself determinative; the court considers the totality of the circumstances. Delay is a factor to be explained, not an automatic bar.
How does this affect custody — and can custody be restored afterward?
A finding that a parent seeking custody perpetrated domestic violence within the previous five years creates a rebuttable presumption that granting that parent sole or joint custody is detrimental to the child. For a petitioner, that presumption is the protection the hearing secures. For a respondent, it is a starting position rather than a conclusion: the statute itself sets out what the court weighs in rebutting it — best interest, completion of a batterer's intervention program, substance abuse counseling or a parenting class where appropriate, compliance with probation, parole, and any protective orders, no further violence, and compliance with firearm restrictions — and the court must state its reasons on the record. Clients who follow this office's guidance — which is built on that statutory checklist — and who maintain a consistent relationship with their children are frequently restored to a full parenting role. What forecloses that outcome is usually not the presumption; it is inaction while the years run.
How are your fees structured?
These matters are billed hourly. That is a matter of candor rather than preference: some restraining order cases resolve at a single hearing while others require extended litigation, and an hourly arrangement means a client pays for the work their particular case actually requires rather than an averaged estimate. The arrangement is set out in writing before representation begins. Where a related criminal charge is also pending, that portion is handled under this office's criminal flat-fee structure.
Served with a request — or need one?
The timeline in these matters is measured in days. Call and we will discuss where you stand.