A protective order is the Texas court order built for family violence: it can bar contact, keep distance, and carry criminal consequences if violated. We represent people seeking protection and people responding to an application. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
A protective order is a civil court order under Title 4 of the Texas Family Code designed to stop family violence. It can prohibit contact, require a person to stay away from your home, workplace, and your children's school, and bar firearm possession. And violating it is a crime under Texas Penal Code § 25.07. A temporary ex parte order can issue without the other person present when the court finds a clear and present danger of family violence under § 83.001; a final order follows a hearing where the court finds whether family violence has occurred under § 85.001. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For confidential, 24/7 support and safety planning, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is (800) 799-7233.
Family violence is an act by a member of a family or household intended to result in physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or sexual assault; or a threat that reasonably places the member in fear of imminent harm. It includes abuse of a child and dating violence, and excludes defensive measures.
At the close of the hearing, the court must find whether family violence has occurred. If it finds that it has, a protective order against the person who committed it is required, not discretionary.
If the application itself shows a clear and present danger of family violence, the court may sign a temporary ex parte order, without notice to the respondent and without a hearing, effective up to 20 days and extendable.
A final protective order runs for the period stated, up to two years. The court may go longer where it finds a felony-level act of family violence, serious bodily injury, or a respondent who has been the subject of two or more prior protective orders.
A history of family violence must be considered in every conservatorship decision, and a finding removes the presumption that parents serve as joint managing conservators. The protective-order hearing and the custody case are never truly separate.
An applicant for a protective order cannot be charged a fee by the clerk, sheriff, constable, or any public official for filing, serving, or entering the order. Cost is not a barrier the statute permits.
Issued on the sworn application alone, without the other side present, when the court finds a clear and present danger of family violence. Effective up to 20 days, extendable (the bridge to the full hearing).
We handle this when the danger is current and the sworn application has to carry the finding on its own.
Issued after the respondent is served and both sides are heard. If the court finds family violence occurred, an order against the person who committed it is required: up to two years, longer in defined circumstances.
We handle this when the hearing will set the terms for the next two years, for applicants and for respondents.
The criminal-side order a magistrate can issue after an arrest for a family-violence offense. It runs on the criminal case's track, separate from the civil protective order a family court signs.
We handle this when a criminal-side order already exists and the family-law case has to be built to fit around it.
The applicant's case: the sworn application, the ex parte decision, and the evidence that carries the § 85.001 finding at the final hearing. Filed where you live, where the respondent lives, or where the violence occurred.
We handle this when you or your children need the law's protection in writing. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 first.
The respondent's case: answering sworn allegations at a hearing where the finding, not the accusation, decides the outcome, including what follows into any custody or divorce case.
We handle this when you have been served. An application deserves a defense presented soberly, on evidence, at the hearing built for exactly that.
If you are in danger right now, call 911 before anything legal. When you call us, intake matches the pace of your situation (same-day alignment review for time-sensitive matters), and we map what the application needs: dates, messages, photographs, medical or police records where they exist.
A protective-order case begins with a sworn application filed with the clerk. Who may file, and for whom, is set by § 82.002. Under § 81.002, the applicant cannot be charged court costs for filing, serving, or entering the order.
If the application itself shows a clear and present danger of family violence, the court may sign a temporary ex parte order under § 83.001, without the respondent present, effective up to 20 days and extendable under § 83.002.
The respondent is served with the application and a hearing date, and both sides present their evidence. At the close of the hearing, § 85.001 requires the court to find whether family violence has occurred.
If the finding is made, the order issues with terms under § 85.021 and § 85.022, runs for the period § 85.025 allows, and is enforced by contempt and criminal prosecution if violated. Its findings also follow the parties into any custody or divorce case.
Most people arrive at this page asking about a “restraining order.” Texas reserves that phrase for something else, and the difference matters, because the two orders are built for different problems and carry very different consequences.
One practical note before you read on: like any web page, this one appears in your browsing history. If someone monitors your device, consider using one they cannot see, or a private browsing window.
A protective order is the instrument Title 4 of the Texas Family Code built for family violence. It is issued on evidence, it can order a person to stay away from you, your home, your workplace, and your children’s school, and violating it is a crime under Texas Penal Code § 25.07. A police officer can act on it. A temporary restraining order, by contrast, is a general civil-procedure tool. In a divorce, the TRO under Texas Family Code § 6.501 restrains things like harassing phone calls and the draining of accounts while the case opens; under TRCP 680 an ex parte TRO holds for up to fourteen days; and it is enforced through contempt, not arrest. A TRO keeps a lawsuit orderly. A protective order is about safety. There is also a third category (no-contact conditions a criminal court attaches to a bond, and the magistrate’s order discussed below), which belong to a criminal case, not a family one.
The definition also reaches abuse of a child and dating violence, so a current or former dating partner is inside it even if you never shared a home.
Texas Family Code § 71.004 supplies the definition that runs through everything else: an act by a member of a family or household against another member that is intended to result in physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or sexual assault; or a threat that reasonably places the member in fear of imminent harm. Defensive measures to protect yourself are expressly excluded. The definition also reaches abuse of a child and dating violence, so a current or former dating partner is inside it even if you never shared a home.
Two things about eligibility surprise people. First, “family” is broader than the household: former spouses, people who are parents of the same child regardless of marriage, and current or former household members are all covered, and under § 82.002 an application can be filed by an adult member of the family or household, a member of a dating relationship, any adult on behalf of a child, or, on a victim’s behalf, a prosecuting attorney or the Department of Family and Protective Services. Second, cost: under § 81.002 the applicant cannot be charged a filing fee, a service fee, or any other court cost connected to the order. The Legislature removed price as a barrier on purpose.
A TRO keeps a lawsuit orderly. A protective order is about safety.
When the danger is current, the Family Code does not make you wait for a hearing. Under § 83.001, if the court finds from the application alone that there is a clear and present danger of family violence, it may sign a temporary ex parte order, without notice to the respondent and without a hearing. That order can issue the same day the application is filed, when the sworn facts support the finding. No lawyer can promise a judge’s signature; what an attorney controls is whether the application gives the judge something to act on: specific dates, specific acts, specific words, sworn.
A temporary ex parte order is valid for the period stated in it, up to twenty days, and can be extended in twenty-day increments under § 83.002 while the case moves toward the full hearing. In defined circumstances it can even exclude the respondent from a shared home at this stage, though § 83.006 sets a deliberately higher bar for that: a detailed sworn affidavit plus the applicant’s in-person testimony, with findings that include recent family violence and a clear and present danger of more.
The final order is where the respondent gets the process the ex parte stage postponed: service, notice, and a hearing where both sides are heard. At the close of that hearing, Texas Family Code § 85.001 requires the court to make a finding: whether family violence has occurred. If the court finds that it has, a protective order against the person who committed it is not a matter of discretion; the statute says the court shall render one.
The ex parte order holds the line for twenty days. The hearing decides everything after it.
Duration is set by § 85.025. The default ceiling is two years: the period stated in the order, or two years if none is stated. The court may go beyond two years only on specific findings: that the respondent committed an act constituting a felony offense involving family violence (whether or not charges were ever filed), caused serious bodily injury, or has already been the subject of two or more protective orders protecting the same person. A respondent may ask the court to review whether the order is still needed after its first year, and the statute is explicit that simply complying with the order does not, by itself, prove it is no longer necessary.
There is a third instrument that arrives from the criminal side. After an arrest for a family-violence offense, a criminal magistrate can issue an order of emergency protection, quickly, and without the arrested person’s agreement. It is a creature of the criminal case: its clock, its terms, and its enforcement run on that docket, separate from anything a family court signs. When a criminal-side order and a civil protective-order case exist at the same time, which is common, the two have to be read together, and part of our work is building the family-law case so its terms fit the order already in place rather than colliding with it.
Against the person found to have committed family violence, § 85.022 lets the court prohibit essentially every channel of intrusion: committing further violence; communicating in a threatening or harassing way, or, on a finding of good cause, communicating at all, except through a lawyer; going to or near your residence or workplace; going to or near a protected child’s school or daycare; stalking-type conduct; tracking or monitoring; interfering with a pet. It can also prohibit possessing a firearm, with a narrow exception for active-duty peace officers, and it can order the respondent into an accredited battering intervention program.
No one, including the person the order protects, can give anyone permission to ignore it.
For either party, § 85.021 adds the practical architecture around the safety terms: exclusive possession of a residence, possession of and access to children, support payments, and the use of property while the order runs. And every Texas protective order, including the temporary ex parte order, carries printed warnings on its face: violation is punishable as contempt, and as a separate crime that can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony. No one, including the person the order protects, can give anyone permission to ignore it.
One honest limit belongs in the same paragraph: a protective order is a legal boundary, not a physical one. It gives police something to enforce and courts something to punish, and for most respondents that is enough. It does not replace a safety plan, and a careful attorney will never tell you it does. Build both.
One honest limit belongs in the same paragraph: a protective order is a legal boundary, not a physical one.
A protective-order hearing is rarely the last time its finding matters. Under Texas Family Code § 153.004, a history of family violence must be considered in every conservatorship decision, and a finding removes the § 153.131 presumption that parents should serve as joint managing conservators. Possession can be restricted, supervised, or conditioned. The same facts often surface in a divorce, where the decree and the protective order have to be drafted to work together, and in CPS involvement, where the Department’s investigation runs parallel to the family case. If an existing custody order is what needs to change because of a safety problem, that path runs through modification: the safety and emergency track exists for exactly this.
This is the quiet reason both sides should treat the hearing with full seriousness. For an applicant, the finding is protection that outlasts the order itself. For a respondent, it is a legal fact that will be read into every custody decision that follows.
Some readers of this page are not seeking an order; they are holding one.
Some readers of this page are not seeking an order; they are holding one. If that is you, three things are worth saying plainly, without judgment.
First, an application is an accusation, not an adjudication. Texas law gives you a hearing before a final order issues, and the hearing is a real one: evidence, testimony, both sides heard, and a finding the court must actually make under § 85.001. Respondents who assume the outcome is predetermined (and skip preparing, or skip appearing) hand the record to the other side.
Nothing damages a respondent’s hearing more reliably than a violation committed while waiting for it.
Second, if a temporary ex parte order came with the papers, it is already binding. Follow every term exactly, including the ones you believe are unfair, and do not contact the applicant directly or through friends and family. Violating the order is a separate crime under Texas Penal Code § 25.07, and it stays a crime even if the court later declines to enter a final order. Nothing damages a respondent’s hearing more reliably than a violation committed while waiting for it.
Third, understand what is actually at stake. A final order can mean up to two years of enforceable restrictions, a firearms prohibition, and, if you are a parent, a family-violence finding that reshapes any custody case under § 153.004. Those consequences deserve counsel before the hearing, not after it. Representing respondents is not about excusing violence; it is about the fact that the finding standard only works when both sides are actually heard.
On this page, the order of operations is different from the rest of our practice: if the situation is time-sensitive, call. Our intake team runs a same-day case alignment review for time-sensitive matters, and the first conversation is about pace: what needs to happen this week, and what can wait for the full process described on what to expect.
For everything else, the path is the same one every matter here follows: a free, fifteen-minute Case Alignment Review with our intake team (your county, your timeline, which side of the application you are on, and whether we are the right firm for the shape of your case). If we are not, we will say so and point you somewhere better suited. When the fit is right, the $275 Strategy Consultation puts your facts in front of an attorney: your case evaluated and your rights and options walked through, whether you are seeking an order, defending against one, or facing the custody case the finding will touch next.
We file protective-order cases across the twelve North Texas counties where we practice. Wherever yours sits, the work is the same: sworn, specific, documented. Evidence a judge can act on, presented by people who have prepared for the hearing as if everything after it depends on the finding. Because it does.
A New York-trained litigator running a Texas family-law practice. Hundreds of North Texas family-law matters handled.
Runs intake for the firm. Before your alignment review, your timeline, your county, and the existing order are already in the file, so the fifteen minutes go to your question.
We handle protective orders matters across the 12 North Texas counties. We know each docket.
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We file in Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, Hunt, Grayson, Fannin, Wise, and Parker counties. We know each docket.
Every family-law case sits in front of a court whose standing orders, hearing rhythms, and docket preferences vary by county. Which court hears a temporary-orders motion the same week. Which one orders mediation before any contested hearing. That is the local part of practice that does not show up in the statute book.
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