1. Amending a pro se petition
   • If a client has come to you after filing a pro se petition, review it to determine whether it should be amended and re-filed. If amending is necessary, the amended petition will have to be re-served and a new court date will probably be set. To determine whether a petition should be amended, consider whether the petition sufficiently pleads incidents that are essential to establishing a history of abuse and dangerousness. For example, petitions should, at a minimum, include allegations about the most recent incident, the worst incident, incidents resulting in injuries, and incidents involving guns, weapons, strangulation, stalking, or death threats. Petitions should also provide information about the general frequency of abuse. Assume that a judge will exclude testimony about any incident not explicitly alleged (even though the law does not require such exclusion). Additionally, the failure to plead important information incidents like those described above can be later used as impeachment to undermine your client’s credibility in a custody or criminal case – should she raise them later.
2. Drafting an original petition
   • ​​​​​When drafting a protective order petition, the LPOR forms will prompt you to write about the most recent incident of violence and the history of violence. As stated above, petitions should include allegations about the most recent incident, the worst incident, incidents resulting in injuries, and incidents involving guns, weapons, strangulation, stalking, or death threats. Petitions should also provide information about the general frequency of abuse. You should also usually include any incidents involving current criminal charges.
3. Special child custody considerations
   • A protective order petitioner may invoke the Post-Separation Family Violence Relief Act by asking that it be applied to the child custody determination.1  Here, the petitioner will need to show a “history of family violence” to secure sole custody.
   • A petitioner requesting temporary child custody in a protective order proceeding may also want to make sure the petition includes information about whether the child has been present during the violence, whether the child has intervened to protect the abused parent, or whether the child has also been abused. Failure to allege incidents involving abuse to the child can be used to impeach the petitioner later, should she allege them in a subsequent child custody proceeding. At the same time, use extreme caution before raising especially complex child abuse claims such as child sex abuse, if there will not be sufficient time to prepare the case and retain experts.

• 1La. R.S. 9:368.

1. Forms
   • The protective order must be reduced to a Uniform Abuse Prevention Order form.1  The judge will expect you to complete this form. All necessary relief should be checked.         
2. Petitioner’s Address
   • The Louisiana Protective Order Registry (LPOR) Forms provide a space for the petitioner’s protected residential address. If the protective order includes a specific home address that the defendant must stay away from, the order may not sufficiently protect a petitioner who moves to a new address. Since petitioners often move, the better practice may be to include a provision prohibiting the defendant from going “anywhere the petitioner may reside,” in addition to listing any specific addresses that are safe to list. The same logic applies to stay-away provisions regarding employment. If the current residential address and place of employment is already known to the defendant, the stay-away provision could be drafted to include those specific addresses and anywhere else the petitioner may reside or be employed.
3. Child Custody
   • ​​​​Visitation and custody provisions should minimize risk to the petitioner and her children. Avoid using joint custody and “reasonable visitation” clauses. “Reasonable visitation” is never appropriate in domestic violence cases. Without specific visitation provisions, an abusive party is likely to weaponize visitation to control the client and to harass her with visitation demands and contempt actions to enforce or expand visitation. There is no reason to assume that a client and her abusive former partner will suddenly agree about what is “reasonable.” Visitation exchanges are also a common setting for conflict and re-assault.

   • Provisions for custody and visitation should be specific, easy to understand, and enforceable. For example, protective orders should explicitly state where and when visitation exchanges can occur and who can be present. They should create explicit but limited exceptions for the abusive parent’s contact with or about the children. Use a supervised visitation center or police station for safe exchanges whenever possible.

4. Mutual Protective Orders

   • Mutual protective orders should almost never be agreed to. Mutual protective orders, if not factually justified, re-victimize the victim, provide an abuser with another vehicle to harass the victim, and can impair future legal rights for victims. Lawyers often have unrealistic expectations about victims’ normal reactions to abuse. The fact that a victim has engaged in physical resistance or even retaliatory violence against an abusive partner is rarely a justification for a mutual protective order. A protective order should apply only to the person who presents a risk of future harm to the other. A victim who is trying to end the relationship does not fall into that category.2

• 1La. C.C.P. art. 3607.1; see Louisiana Protective Order Registry Index of Uniform Abuse Prevention Order Forms, La. Sup. Ct.
• 2For further discussion, see Section 3.5.

In most cases, it makes sense to make a quick initial determination about whether your client’s abusive former partner will contest a protective order. In some cases, they will agree to the order that you have requested. This scenario is less likely in cases that involve ancillary claims for support and/or child custody. To negotiate effectively, you should consult with your client before court about the possibility of settlement and determine what, if any, issues are subject to negotiation. For example, you should know in advance what type of supervised visitation arrangements your client wants so that any negotiated order can include all necessary specifics. In general, follow these rules when negotiating with the other side:

• Do not negotiate in front of your client.
• Do not agree to a mutual injunction.
• Do not agree to an “injunction” that does not go into the LPOR. Do not assume that the order can be converted to a registry order in the future should it become necessary.1
• Do not agree to custodial arrangements or visitation without advising your client about the effects on future custody litigation under the Post-Separation Family Violence Relief Act.
• Do not give a pro se defendant legal advice. This means you should not answer questions such as “If I agree to this, does it mean I am admitting to the abuse?” or “How does this affect my guns?” Refer the defendant to the court for questions.
• Be cautious about offers to “pay” for the client’s cell phone. If the phone remains in the abusive party’s name, he may be able to activate GPS tracking services or monitor her communications.          

Consent agreements must be signed by the court so that the abusive party may be held in contempt for violation.2  Be sure to read the consent agreement in full into the record so that the court can make a clear record that each party has read the order and its provisions fully, understands the order, and agrees to its terms.3

• 1See generally Branstetter v. Purohit, 2006-1435, pp. 4–6 (La. App. 4 Cir. 5/2/07), 958 So. 2d 740, 743–44 (holding that trial court erred when it converted a non-registry injunction entered by consent into a registry injunction without notice in a subsequent contempt proceeding).
• 2See La. R.S. 46:2136.
• 3See McInnis v. McInnis, 38,748-CA (La. App. 2 Cir. 8/14/04), 880 So. 2d 240, 244 (citing Alogdon v. Guertin, 97-CA-0235 (La. App. 4 Cir. 10/1/97), 701 So. 2d 480) (finding consent judgment read into record becomes legal judgment even if not reduced to writing).