2025 In Review
Every day, Counsel for Justice’s Domestic Violence Project (DVP) helps survivors make decisions that affect their safety, housing, family, and legal rights.
Mario came to DVP for help seeking a restraining order against his adult son. He described his son as a good person when he was taking his medication, but when he wasn’t, he became unpredictable and violent. After multiple police calls and complaints from neighbors, Mario was given an ultimatum: remove his son from the home or risk losing his housing.
With DVP’s help, Mario was able to request protections he did not know existed, including a move-out order and mental health treatment. He chose a stay-away order while keeping the door open for contact if his son needed help. For the first time, Mario felt that he and his wife could be safe in their own home.
The Survivors We Help
In 2025, DVP helped 1,692 survivors, nearly all of whom could not afford an attorney. Ninety-five percent qualified as very low-income, leaving private counsel well out of reach. In a system built for lawyers, free legal help is a lifeline.
The legal need is urgent, and the cases are rarely simple. Most of the restraining order requests we prepare involve intimate partner violence. A growing number, nearly a third, involve violence within families, often tied to mental health challenges, substance use, or both. Many families turn to restraining orders as a last resort, after law enforcement or other services will not step in, or when landlords threaten eviction.
Survivors often arrive at court while processing trauma and facing urgent decisions. They are handed a packet of legal forms, often close to 100 pages, and asked to explain what happened in a few lines while meeting strict legal standards.
Without guidance, many cannot move forward.
What DVP Support Means
With trauma-informed, one-on-one support from volunteer attorneys and law students, survivors can understand their options, prepare accurate paperwork, and tell the court what happened and what protection they need.
Each year, DVP reviews DVRO filings to analyze what happens after a survivor leaves the clinic. In 2025, among survivors assisted by DVP:
- 93% obtained a Temporary Restraining Order
- 28% received a long-term restraining order at their first hearing
Each completed filing represents a person who reached the court instead of being stopped by paperwork.
Court outcomes matter, but they are not the only measure. Survivors are the experts in their own lives. DVP helps them understand their options and decide what safety looks like for them.
Volunteers make this work possible: the one-on-one help at the courthouse, the detailed declarations, and the partnerships that connect survivors to immediate safety resources.
Adding Safety Support On Site
In August 2025, DVP launched a partnership with Peace Over Violence (POV) to place a domestic violence advocate in the clinic, a unique service in a Los Angeles courthouse. While DVP volunteers and staff help with the restraining order request, the advocate helps with safety planning, shelter referrals, accompaniment, and other immediate needs.
Janet came to DVP with a baby in her arms. She had called the police after her partner hurt her, even though he threatened to kill her if she ever sought help. He was released the same day, and she was forced to spend the night in the same home, locked in her room, afraid he would follow through on those threats.
While a volunteer prepared her restraining order paperwork, the advocate worked to secure a safe place for her to go. She found Janet a shelter, helped create a safety plan, and accompanied her to court weeks later. Janet was granted a one-year restraining order and full custody of her child.
Janet later shared that without DVP’s support, she would not have had a choice but to return to her abuser.
Protecting Survivors Before They Are Served
DVP’s work goes much further than the filing window. Because DVP is often a survivor’s first interaction with the legal system, it is uniquely positioned to identify broader issues affecting litigants.
In 2024, a litigant came to DVP with a concern. She had filed a restraining order and was still deciding on her next steps. She knew that once she served the paperwork, there was no going back. Before she could decide, an attorney sent a solicitation letter to the respondent who was still living in her home.
That letter jeopardized her ability to decide how and when to move forward.
For survivors, safety planning does not end at filing. Because restraining orders are not enforceable until service, advance notice increases the risk of retaliation and evasion, ultimately putting petitioners in harm’s way.
DVP spotted the risk and rallied the DV community, bringing the issue to the State Bar. Volunteers and supporters showed up with powerful public comments emphasizing that lives were literally at stake.
The State Bar responded with a proposed rule amendment preventing attorneys from soliciting respondents before service is completed. The California Supreme Court approved the change, recognizing that this practice undermines trust in the legal system and deters survivors from seeking protection.
This is what DVP and its volunteers can achieve: helping one person while making the system safer for the next.
Why It Matters
Our work is rooted in the simple idea that no survivor should have to navigate the legal system alone.
With DVP’s assistance, survivors understand their options, tell their story, and take the next step toward safety for themselves and their families on their own terms.