Domestic Violence

Domestic violence issues rarely arrive alone. They arrive tangled in a divorce, a custody fight, a separation that turned volatile — one story told in two or three courtrooms at once. Mack Law handles the entire picture in-house: injunctions for protection prosecuted and defended, stalking cases, substance-abuse and child-abuse issues inside family court, and criminal domestic-violence defense by a former prosecutor. One trial lawyer, one strategy, every courtroom.

A family-law problem that touches three courts

When violence — or an accusation of violence — enters a household, Florida gives the parties three separate legal tracks, each with its own judge, rules, and stakes. The civil injunction court can enter a restraining order within hours of a petition, on one side’s sworn story alone. The family court deciding your divorce or time-sharing case treats domestic violence, substance abuse, and child safety as statutory best-interest factors that shape every parenting decision. And the criminal court prosecutes battery, assault, strangulation, and stalking charges that carry jail, lifetime records, and firearm bans.

These tracks run at the same time, about the same facts, involving the same people — and what happens in one becomes evidence in the others. Testimony given at a fifteen-minute injunction hearing surfaces months later in a custody trial. A plea taken quickly in criminal court to “make it go away” becomes the centerpiece of the other side’s family-law case. A parent who ignores a substance-abuse allegation in the divorce watches it harden into supervised visitation. Handling each track as if the others don’t exist is the most common — and most expensive — mistake in this area of law.

How common this is

Domestic violence is not a niche issue; it runs straight through family law. The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey estimates that roughly two in five women and one in four men in the United States experience contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetimes. Florida clerks process tens of thousands of protective-injunction petitions every year — there is no filing fee, the forms are online, and a petition can be signed at the courthouse in an afternoon. That accessibility protects people in genuine danger. It also means injunctions get filed in the heat of a separation as leverage — for the house, for the children, for the upper hand in a divorce that hasn’t been filed yet. Both realities are true, and we have stood on both sides of them.

What we handle

Domestic violence injunctions. Petitions for protection under section 741.30, Florida Statutes — and the defense of them. These “mini-trials” move from filing to final hearing in about two weeks, follow the rules of evidence, and can decide who lives in the house and who sees the children long before any divorce judge weighs in. We prepare them like the trials they are: evidence, witnesses, cross-examination, and where the stakes demand it, depositions and discovery.

Stalking injunctions. A separate statute — section 784.0485 — with its own elements: a course of conduct, at least two incidents, and “substantial emotional distress” measured by a reasonable-person standard. Text messages, social media, GPS trackers, and repeated “coincidental” appearances are the modern battleground. We petition for these, and we defend people whose ordinary conduct is being recast as stalking.

Substance abuse in divorce & custody. Alcohol and drug issues appear in a remarkable share of contested custody cases — because they appear in a remarkable share of American households. Florida’s best-interest factors put a parent’s ability to maintain a substance-free environment squarely before the judge. How you handle the issue — acknowledgment and treatment versus denial — often matters more than the issue itself. We guide clients through both sides: raising a co-parent’s abuse with proof, and rebuilding a parent’s position after their own struggle.

Child abuse allegations. The most combustible allegation in family court. A report to the abuse hotline triggers a DCF investigation on its own timeline while the custody case continues on another. We represent parents protecting a child from genuine abuse — and parents falsely accused in the middle of a custody war, where an unfounded allegation can do years of damage in a single hearing.

Defense against criminal domestic-violence charges. Battery, assault, strangulation, and related charges — defended by a former prosecutor who has handled these cases from both tables. Domestic-violence arrests happen fast, often on one statement and no physical evidence, and the consequences are permanent: a conviction (even with adjudication withheld) can never be sealed or expunged, and federal law strips firearm rights for life. If you are arrested while a divorce is pending, the two cases must be run as one strategy.

Why one firm — and one lawyer — for all of it

The standard approach splits these cases: a family lawyer for the divorce, a criminal lawyer for the charge, maybe a third appearance for the injunction. Each lawyer sees a third of the board. The criminal lawyer negotiates a plea without realizing it forfeits the custody case. The family lawyer lets a client testify at an injunction hearing without preparing for how the transcript reads to a prosecutor. Nobody coordinates the timing — and timing is strategy: what you say, where you say it first, and what you make the other side say under oath.

Mack Law runs the whole board. Michael T. Mackhanlall is a former prosecutor and a family-law trial attorney; the injunction hearing, the custody case, and the criminal defense are prepared by the same mind, toward the same end. The cross-examination in the injunction hearing is built knowing the criminal case will read it. The family-court filings are drafted knowing a prosecutor may. That is not a convenience — in these cases it is the advantage.

If you need protection today

If you or your children are in danger, call 911 first. The courthouse process can move the same day: an injunction petition costs nothing to file, and a judge can enter a temporary order — removing the other person from the home and setting distance — before they are even notified. Bring what you have: messages, photographs, medical records, names of witnesses. We prepare petitions that hold up at the final hearing, not just the first afternoon, because a temporary order that collapses two weeks later can be worse than none at all.

If you were just served — or just arrested

Do not contact the other person — not to explain, not to apologize, not through friends. Every violation of a no-contact condition is a new crime and a new exhibit. Read every date on the papers: injunction hearings are typically set within fifteen days, and the hearing is the trial. Preserve everything — texts, photos, receipts, location history — and write down your timeline while it is fresh. Then get counsel who sees all three courtrooms at once, before you say anything on any record.

Related at Mack Law

This page describes Florida law in general terms as of its last update and is not legal advice about any specific situation. Authorities discussed include §§ 741.28, 741.30, 741.31, 784.046, 784.0485, and 61.13, Florida Statutes. Every case turns on its own facts; prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.