What’s New on WomensLaw.org

We updated all of the legal and non-legal resources and courthouse information on our Oklahoma Where to Find Help page.

We added information to the Civil No Contact Orders page on our Illinois Restraining Orders section and added several additional statutes related to civil no contact orders to our IL Statutes page.

We updated all of the legal and non-legal resources in Spanish and English on our Arkansas Where to Find Help page. In addition, we added 5 new organizations that provide services to domestic violence victims and survivors on our AR State and Local Programs page and 2 new legal resources on our AR Finding a Lawyer page.

We updated a few questions on our Arizona State Gun Laws page based on legislative changes to include two more legal reasons why a person might be prohibited from having a gun in his/her possession. We also changed information on our Arizona Custody page to reflect changes in the law regarding relocation of a child. All changes were made in English and Spanish.

We revised our Marital / Partner Rape page in English and Spanish, improving the content and updating the statistics regarding the occurrence of sexual coercion/rape within intimate relationships.

We added the crime of “Malicious or unlawful assault; assault; battery” to the West Virginia Crimes page.

Based on statutory changes to Alabama law that took effect in June 2015, we updated almost all of the Know the Laws sections in Alabama, adding new questions and revising others. We also added two new statutes to the Alabama Statutes page.

Inspired by an Email Hotline inquiry, we just added a new section to our Oregon pages about the Housing Laws that protect victims of stalking, sexual assault and domestic violence.

We added a new Danger Assessment page in our Learn About Abuse section, where users can learn more about some of the factors that indicate a victim is at greater risk of being seriously injured or killed by an abuser.

We re-wrote and greatly improved the content of the Washington Domestic Violence Orders for Protection page, the Sexual Assault Protection Orders page, and the Civil Anti-Harassment Orders page and created the Stalking Protection Orders page.

We improved the Alabama Finding a Lawyer page, updating all of the current listings, adding descriptions of services, and adding 4 new legal organizations to the list.

We translated the Housing Laws sections in Arkansas and Arizona into Spanish.

We added the crime of custodial interference to our Oregon Crimes page.

We updated the Relief from Abuse Orders page for Vermont.

We improved the question entitled What is the legal definition of domestic violence in NJ? on our New Jersey Restraining Orders page by linking each crime listed in that question to the statute that defines it.

We re-wrote and greatly improved the content of two questions on our Washington Custody page: Can a parent who committed domestic violence, sexual assault, or child abuse get decision-making powers or parenting time? and How will a judge make a decision about custody?

We updated the resources in our State and Local Programs page and our Finding a Lawyer page in New Jersey.

We improved our Sexual Harassment in the Workplace page in English and Spanish.

On our way to completing our translation of our Georgia, we translated our Divorce section into Spanish and our Moving to Another State with a Family Violence Protective Order section into Spanish.

We added some information to our Maryland Domestic Violence Protective Orders page about the right of a victim to get law enforcement to accompany him/her to the home to retrieve belongings and medication even without a protective order.

We updated all of the legal resources on our New Mexico Finding a Lawyer page and added 12 new resources. All updates and additions were made in English and Spanish.

In our Louisiana Suing Your Abuser section, we added links to 13 different city or county small claims courts since filing fees vary in each city. We also added two new crimes to our Louisiana Crimes page.

We added 6 new crimes to our Utah Crimes page.

We added brief information to our California Suing Your Abuser page in Spanish and English about the tort of stalking and linked to the language of the law on our CA Statutes page.

As we make our way through translating our Georgia Know the Laws pages into Spanish, we just completed the translation (and reorganization) of our Georgia Custody page.

Based on a new law that became effective in Pennsylvania in September 2014, we added information to our Suing Your Abuser page about a victim’s right to sue someone who disseminates intimate images of him/her (in Spanish and English).

We are thrilled to begin translating into Spanish the information in the Know the Laws section for a new state, Georgia. We just completed the Spanish translation of the Family Violence Protection Orders page - you can check it out here. More to come soon!

We translated into Spanish the recently-added section to our New Mexico page, which, in English, is called Civil Restraining Orders (for harassment or other harm).

We improved a few questions, such as this one, on our Ohio State Gun Law pages and added the definition of the crimes of assault and negligent assault to our Ohio Crimes page.

Based on a 2014 change in Ohio law, we added a new question to our Stalking or Sexually Oriented Offense Protection Orders section and we revised and improved the whole Stalking or Sexually Oriented Offense Protection Orders section. We also added 11 sexual crimes to our Ohio Statutes page and linked to those definitions on our Ohio Crimes page.

In response to an email inquiry we received on the Email Hotline about custody in the US Virgin Islands, we revised the question: What factors will a judge consider when deciding custody? and added a new question: What factors will a judge consider when deciding custody and visitation when there is domestic violence?

We created a new section in our Louisiana pages called Protective Orders (for Stalking) based on a new law that became effective in August 2014.

We added a new section to our New Mexico Restraining Orders page called Civil Restraining Orders (for harassment and other harm). The Spanish translation will be posted soon.

We added a new section to the Montana Restraining Orders page called Orders of Protection (for crime victims) to make it clear to our readers that certain crime victims can qualify for an order of protection even if they do not have an intimate or familial relationship with the offender. We also updated all of the information in our Montana Orders of Protection (for domestic violence victims) page.

We added a new question on our North Dakota Custody page called When can I ask the court to change which parent has primary residential responsibility?

We added a new question in Spanish and English to our North Carolina Custody page called Can a parent who regularly drinks /abuses alcohol get custody or visitation?, related to the judge’s ability to order a parent to wear a continuous alcohol monitoring system. We also revised the question called: How will a judge make a decision about custody? to include information about a parent’s military deployment.

We re-vamped our New Hampshire Protective Orders (due to domestic violence) page. Some notable changes are that we created the following new questions: Can the judge issue a mutual protective order or cross-protective orders? and If I briefly get back together with the abuser, does this make the order invalid? We also added new crimes to our Crimes page and added information on the protections that can be granted in an ex parte temporary protective order to the question How can a protective order help me?

We added a brief Workplace Protections page for Minnesota and improved the overall content in all of the Minnesota Know the Laws sections.

We added a new Divorce section for the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We added new links to outside sources on our Louisiana Custody page.

We added a lot of new information to the question on our Maine State Gun Laws page.

We re-wrote and augmented the question on our Delaware Custody page called If a custody/visitation order is in place, how can I get it changed?

Check out our new and improved Harassment Restraining Orders section in Minnesota.

We revised the information and links to outside sources on our Nebraska Divorce page, Kansas Divorce page and Massachusetts Divorce page.

Prompted by an email from a WomensLaw.org visitor, we updated some outdated links in English and Spanish on our Helping Others - Doctors and Health Care Workers page. Please keep the suggestions coming!

We added a new question to our Washington, D.C. custody page based on a June 2013 law prohibiting a convicted rapist from getting custody or visitation of a child conceived from the rape. See If my child was conceived from a sexual assault, can the biological father get custody or visitation? We also added the definitions of the sexual abuse crimes that come under the law to our DC Statutes page and our DC Crimes page.

We added information to our Arkansas Domestic Violence Orders of Protection page and our AR Suing Your Abuser page about a law that was passed in August 2013, which allows a victim of stalking to sue the stalker for money damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, and court costs regardless of whether or not s/he was arrested for stalking.

Read about how the US Supreme Court’s strike-down of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) could help same-sex victims qualify for VAWA relief! See our new question, Does a same-sex marriage count as being “married” to the abuser for immigration purposes?

We are expanding the Crimes pages in every state to allow you to click on the legal definition of various crimes in each state. So far, we have amended Alabama through Indiana, and we added a brand new Spanish Crimes page in Arkansas. Check back soon for more updates!

We updated our T-Visa section in English and Spanish, correcting links and information.

We updated our U Visa and VAWA sections in English and Spanish.

A Florida law that was passed in October 2012 allowed for the creation of civil injunctions based on stalking. WomensLaw has now created an entirely new section with detailed information about Injunctions for Protection Against Stalking/Cyberstalking.