Do Discovery Before the Hearing
Video Transcribed: This isthe Tulsa Fathers Rights Attorney. I want to do a little bit of a video on protective orders because a lot of times guys end up getting into fights with their women, not necessarily physical, but I mean just verbal fights and then there’s a separation. And one way that they try to take advantage of keeping, usually somebody who’s not married away from the children is a protective order before a paternity case is even filed. Right?
So how do you go about defending yourself if she files a protective order? My advice is to do discovery before the hearing. Protective order court is as a matter of law, and what that means is that the standard preponderance of the evidence, either the conduct in the hearing meets the statute, or it does not.
It’s a low bar. It’s a really low bar. If you’re going to have a paternity case involved, it’s best to consolidate the issue of a protective order because you surround it with other equitable interests and issues around the best interests of the children, right?
If not, you still want an opportunity to do discovery. If you’ve got a little bit of money in your wallet, the best way to start discovery is by noticing a deposition. And what that entails is bringing the protected party into your lawyer’s office and questioning them for four to six hours about the allegations and the protective order.
After that point, you would then submit written discovery and request that she or he admits things, produce things, like text messages, videos, other sorts of potential evidence, and or do interrogatories, which offer an opportunity for you to make people list things out for you, explain things, and other things such as that.
Generally speaking, once discovery is over, you’ll be in a much better position to go to a protective order hearing if you have to. Sometimes that process of discovery is enough of a cool-off period that the protected party loses interest in the procedure and doesn’t respond to discovery or doesn’t show up to a hearing. So this was the Tulsa Father’s Rights lawyer talking a little bit about protective orders. Give me a call if you’ve got any questions.
