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Injunction Defense
An injunction petition is the only proceeding in Florida where a judge can take away your home, your children, and your firearms before you've said a word — through a temporary order issued the same day the petition is filed, on the petitioner's sworn allegations alone. What stands between that temporary order and a permanent one is a single hearing, usually about two weeks later. People walk into that hearing without a lawyer, treat it like a conversation, and walk out with a lifetime public record that generally can't be sealed.
If you've been served, the hearing date on the papers is the most important date on your calendar. Call or text 407-846-8008 today.
What's Really at Stake
A final injunction is a civil order, but its consequences read like a sentence:
• Firearms: surrender of all guns and ammunition — possessing them under a final DV or stalking injunction is a crime (§ 790.233), and federal law may add its own prohibition.
• Home and children: exclusion from a shared residence and court-shaped timesharing, often litigated later in family court on the injunction record.
• A permanent public record that appears in background searches — injunctions generally cannot be sealed or expunged, even when dissolved.
• Employment fallout for anyone with a security clearance, a carry-required job, a professional license, or military service.
• A tripwire for prosecution: any alleged violation — a text, a “like,” a drive past the house, contact through a mutual friend — can be charged as a crime (first-degree misdemeanor, and a felony for repeat violations against the same victim). Many injunction respondents are later arrested not for violence, but for a reply to a message the petitioner sent first.
The Five Main Types
Florida issues injunctions for domestic violence, repeat violence, dating violence, sexual violence, and stalking, each with its own legal standard — and the standards have real edges. A DV injunction requires qualifying relationship and violence or objectively reasonable fear of imminent violence; repeat violence requires two incidents, one within six months; stalking requires a course of conduct causing substantial emotional distress with no legitimate purpose. Petitions frequently fail these standards on their face — but only if someone stands up and says so.
How We Defend the Hearing
The final hearing is a real evidentiary proceeding: testimony under oath, cross-examination, exhibits, and rules of evidence. We prepare it like the trial it is:
• The petition is locked in. The petitioner's sworn narrative can't quietly change at the hearing — inconsistencies are cross-examination gold.
• Messages cut both ways. Full text threads, call logs, and social media routinely show mutual contact, invitations, and motives (divorce positioning, custody leverage, new relationships) the petition omits.
• The legal standard is enforced. “He makes me uncomfortable” is not the statutory test, and judges deny legally insufficient petitions when the defense holds them to the elements.
• Strategic coordination. If there's a parallel criminal case, what you say at the injunction hearing can be used there. Sometimes the right move is aggressive defense; sometimes it's a continuance or a negotiated resolution without findings. That judgment call is why counsel matters.
We also represent petitioners with a genuine need for protection — and respondents seeking to dissolve or modify old injunctions that have outlived any purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions
It's temporary — can't I just explain my side at the hearing?
The hearing is the case. Respondents who “just explain” get cross-examined by the petitioner's lawyer and leave with a permanent injunction. Bring counsel or risk living with the result forever.
She's texting me even though she filed it. Can I reply?
No. The order binds you, not the petitioner — replying is a crime, and petitioner-initiated contact is a known trap. Save everything, respond to nothing, and give it to your lawyer.
Will agreeing to the injunction “to keep the peace” hurt me?
A consented injunction still carries every consequence above. Sometimes a negotiated outcome makes sense — but only with modifications, time limits, or no-findings language that protects you.
Can an injunction be lifted later?
Yes — either side may move to modify or dissolve on changed circumstances. It is far easier, though, to defeat a petition now than to dissolve an injunction later.
Two Weeks to Protect the Rest of Your Record
Call or text 407-846-8008 as soon as you are served for a free consultation with former prosecutor Chad Seibel. The preparation window is short, and the order is long. Office visits are by appointment only.