Austin Protective Order Lawyer: Restraining Orders and Protective Orders in Texas
Whether you need an Austin restraining order lawyer to protect you now or you have just been served with an application, start here: in Texas, a restraining order and a protective order are two different instruments, and only one of them can put someone in jail. Protective order cases also move fast. A temporary ex parte order can be granted without notice to the other side, and the hearing on a final order is generally set within 14 days of filing.
Our Austin protective order lawyers and restraining order attorneys handle both sides, applicants and respondents, across Austin and Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties. Attorney Shane M. Boasberg brings more than 20 years of Texas family law experience to these cases. Call our Austin protective order law firm at (512) 561-5003.
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Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Protective orders in Texas provide legal protection from domestic violence, harassment, and stalking, serving as a barrier between victims and perpetrators.
- Texas offers three types of protective orders: temporary ex parte, final, and emergency protective orders, each catering to different situations and durations of protection.
- The legal process for obtaining a protective order requires filing an application, attending a court hearing, and proving the occurrence of family violence, with violations resulting in severe legal consequences.
What Is a Protective Order in Texas?
A protective order is a civil order issued under Title 4 of the Texas Family Code, and it is what most people in Austin mean when they ask a restraining order lawyer for help. A protective order is designed to stop family violence, dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault. Unlike a restraining order it is backed by the criminal law: once it exists, violating it is a crime a police officer can arrest for on the spot.
An order can bar contact, order the respondent to stay a set distance from a home, school, or workplace, exclude them from a shared residence, prohibit firearm possession, and set temporary custody, possession, and support terms while it is in effect.
Under Section 81.002, an applicant pays no fee of any kind: no filing fee, no service fee, no court reporter or certification cost. Anyone who tells you a protective order is expensive to obtain is wrong about the filing itself.
Restraining Order or Protective Order? They Are Not the Same
Most people who call an Austin restraining order attorney actually need a protective order. The two get used interchangeably online, and the difference decides whether the order has teeth.
A temporary restraining order in a Texas divorce is issued under Family Code Section 6.501 and Rule 680. It preserves the status quo: it stops a spouse from draining accounts, selling property, cancelling insurance, or harassing the other party. It lasts 14 days, with one extension.
Violating a divorce TRO is not a crime. Section 6.506 makes it punishable as contempt, and nothing more. Penal Code Section 25.07 lists the orders it criminalizes, and Section 6.501 is not on that list. No arrest, no criminal charge, no firearms consequence.
A protective order is criminally enforceable. Violating one is a Class A misdemeanor at minimum and can be a felony.
There is a second trap in the same chapter. A divorce TRO under Section 6.501(b)(2)(A) cannot exclude a spouse from the home where that spouse is living. If you need someone out of the house, a TRO will not do it. That takes a temporary injunction after a hearing, or a Title 4 protective order.
So the practical question is not which words you use. It is whether you need the status quo preserved, or whether you need protection an officer can enforce.
The Four Orders Texas Actually Uses
Temporary ex parte protective order (Section 83.001). Issued without notice or a hearing when the application shows a clear and present danger of family violence. Lasts 20 days and can be extended in further 20-day periods. Since a 2023 amendment, Section 83.0025 makes it enforceable to the same extent as a final order, and once it has been served, violating it is a crime.
Final protective order (Chapter 85). The main event. Issued after a hearing where both sides appear, on a finding of family violence. Duration is covered below.
Emergency protective order, formally a magistrate's order of emergency protection (Code of Criminal Procedure Article 17.292). Comes out of the criminal side after an arrest, not from your application.
Temporary restraining order (Section 6.501). The divorce order described above. Civil only.
Two provisions worth knowing on the ex parte order. Section 83.006 makes it hard to remove someone from a home without notice: it requires a sworn affidavit, the applicant's in-person testimony, and findings that the applicant lived there within the last 30 days and that the respondent committed family violence within the last 30 days. And Section 83.004 lets a respondent move to vacate an ex parte order at any time, with the court required to set a hearing as soon as possible. That is the fastest lever a respondent has.
The Legal Process for Obtaining a Protective Order
Under Section 82.002, an adult member of the family or household may apply, for themselves or for another member. Any adult may apply on behalf of a child. A prosecuting attorney or the Department of Family and Protective Services may also file, and in that case the alleged victim, not the filer, is treated as the applicant.
An Austin protective order attorney or a lawyer can guide you through the filing, and a free consultation is the place to start. The application must be sworn and must contain a detailed factual description of the violence, not a summary. Under Section 84.001 the court sets a hearing within 14 days of filing. If the respondent is served fewer than 48 hours before that hearing, Section 84.004 entitles them on request to a reset of up to 14 days. Once an order is in place, enforcement is a separate proceeding.
Filing the Application
You file in the county where you live, where the respondent lives, or where the violence occurred. In Travis County these are heard in the family courts downtown, often alongside a child custody case.
What decides the case is the specificity of the affidavit. Dates, locations, what was said, what was done, who saw it, what was documented afterward. Photographs, medical records, texts, call logs, and police report numbers do more work than adjectives. A judge reading a sworn statement full of general characterizations and no dates has very little to act on, and a respondent's lawyer will say exactly that.
The Hearing, and the Finding the Court Must Make
Here is a correction that matters, because most Texas pages still have it wrong.
The old rule required the court to find that family violence had occurred and was likely to occur again. The second half of that test was repealed effective September 1, 2023. Section 85.001(a) now reads simply that at the close of the hearing, the court shall find whether family violence has occurred. There is no longer any requirement to prove future risk.
That change matters to both sides. For an applicant, the burden is lighter than older articles suggest. For a respondent, an argument built entirely on “nothing has happened in two years” no longer defeats the application on its own.
The hearing is a real evidentiary proceeding. Both sides testify, present documents, and cross-examine. If the respondent was properly served and does not appear, Section 85.006 allows the court to proceed by default.
What the Judge Decides
If the court finds that family violence occurred, issuing a protective order is not discretionary. Under Section 85.001(b)(1), the court shall render an order against the person found to have committed it. The discretion is in the terms, not in whether an order issues.
The court may also enter provisions applying to both parties under Section 85.021 where that is in the protected person's best interest, and may address custody, possession, support, and use of a residence or vehicle while the order is in effect.
Under Section 81.003, the court may order the respondent to pay the applicant's attorney fees and costs.
Defending Against a Protective Order
Being named as a respondent in a protective order case is not a formality. The order follows you into firearm ownership, employment that requires a license to carry, custody litigation, and, if you are not a citizen, immigration exposure. It deserves a defense.
The standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence, which is why a judge can grant an order on evidence that would not support a criminal charge. The Texas Supreme Court confirmed that default in Stary v. Ethridge in 2025.
But that same case created an important exception. Where a protective order would bar all contact between a parent and their children for more than two years, the court held that the higher clear and convincing evidence standard applies, and that the trial court must consider the children's best interest before entering it. That is the most significant development in Texas protective order defense in years, and it is narrow: it applies to orders cutting off all parent-child contact beyond two years, not to ordinary protective orders.
A real defense usually turns on the affidavit. What is alleged, on what dates, supported by what. Where the account has shifted, where the documents contradict it, where the timeline does not work. There is no statutory right to an appointed attorney in a Title 4 protective order case, which means an unrepresented respondent faces a represented applicant.
Violating a Protective Order Is a Crime
Violating a protective order is a criminal offense under Penal Code Section 25.07, not merely contempt. The prohibited conduct includes committing family violence, communicating with the protected person in a prohibited way, going near a protected location, possessing a firearm, harming a pet, and tampering with GPS monitoring.
The baseline is a Class A misdemeanor. It becomes a third-degree felony where the person has two or more prior convictions under Section 25.07, or where the violation was committed by assault or stalking. As of September 1, 2025, it is a state jail felony to violate the order while possessing a deadly weapon. Two or more violations within 12 months is a separate third-degree felony under Section 25.072, now a second-degree felony where one instance involved a deadly weapon.
Two provisions people get wrong. Under Section 25.07(d), reconciling does not undo the order: an invitation from the protected person is not a defense, and the officer's duty to enforce is unchanged. Under Section 25.07(e), the protected person cannot be arrested for violating their own order.
Why Choose Shane M. Boasberg as Your Austin Protective Order Lawyer
Protective order cases in Austin move fast and the stakes are asymmetric. An applicant may have days to assemble the evidence that decides two years of protection. A respondent may have 14 days to prepare for a hearing that will reshape their custody case and their firearm rights.
Shane M. Boasberg has practiced Texas law for more than two decades, with a background spanning private practice, the Texas Legislature, and the Office of the Texas Attorney General. He is recognized by Texas Monthly as a Rising Star and belongs to the State Bar of Texas, the Austin Bar Association, and the Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association.
We also handle the modification work that often follows. Our Austin protective order law firm is at 1204 San Antonio Street downtown, two blocks from the Travis County courthouse where these hearings are held. Our protective order attorneys represent applicants and respondents across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties.
Before You Agree to a Protective Order
Respondents are often told that agreeing to a protective order makes the problem go away without an admission. In Texas that is not how it works, and the statute is explicit about it.
Section 85.005 allows the parties to agree to one of these protective orders. Subsection (b) then says an agreed order is enforceable civilly or criminally regardless of whether the court makes the findings required by Section 85.001.
Read that again. You can agree to an order with no finding of family violence against you, and the order still carries the full criminal weight of Section 25.07. The Class A misdemeanor floor applies. The felony enhancements apply. The Texas firearms prohibition applies. Attorney fees can still be assessed against you.
The contrast is telling. When the Legislature wanted to protect someone agreeing to an order, it knew how: Section 262.1016 requires an agreed order removing an alleged perpetrator from a child's home to state in bold capitals that the agreement is not an admission and cannot be used against you. Section 85.005 contains no equivalent language.
Agreeing can still be the right decision. It should be a decision made with the consequences on the table, not as a way to end an uncomfortable afternoon at the courthouse.
Emergency Protective Orders After an Arrest
An emergency protective order comes from the criminal side, not from your application. After an arrest for a family violence offense, a magistrate may issue one under Article 17.292 on their own motion or at the request of the victim, a peace officer, or the State. It is mandatory where the arrest involved serious bodily injury or the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon.
The durations changed on September 1, 2025. An EPO now runs 61 to 91 days, and 91 to 121 days where a deadly weapon was used or exhibited. Older pages still quoting 31 to 61 days are out of date.
An emergency protective order buys time. It is not a substitute for a Title 4 protective order, and an emergency protective order expires on its own schedule regardless of what is happening in your family case. If you want protection past that date, someone has to apply for a protective order.
How Long a Final Protective Order Lasts
Texas calls it a final protective order, not a permanent one, and the default under Section 85.025 is up to two years.
It can run longer, including for the respondent's lifetime, where the court finds the respondent caused serious bodily injury, or where the respondent has been the subject of two or more prior protective orders involving the same applicant and a finding of family violence. The court must include that finding in the order.
Going the other way is harder than people expect. Under Section 85.025(b), a respondent generally cannot move to review a protective order until it has been in place a year, and Section 85.025(b-2) provides that compliance with the order, on its own, does not establish that there is no continuing need for it.
Impact of Protective Orders on Family Law Matters
A protective order reaches directly into an Austin custody case. The court can set possession terms inside the protective order itself, and a family violence finding carries weight in the conservatorship analysis that follows.
Protective orders may also require the offending parent to stay away from a child's school or daycare. It changes the practical picture too: exchanges may need a neutral location or a third party, and the geographic restrictions in the order have to be reconciled with a possession schedule so a parent is not forced to choose between complying with one order and complying with another. Where a divorce or custody case is already pending, the protective order and that case need to be handled together rather than in separate lanes.
Enforcing Out-of-State Protective Orders in Texas
An out-of-state protective order is enforceable in Texas without being registered here, and our Austin restraining order law firm handles these regularly. Federal law requires states to give full faith and credit to a valid protection order, and Texas has adopted the uniform enforcement act in Chapter 88 of the Family Code.
Enforceability turns on whether the issuing court had jurisdiction and whether the respondent had notice and an opportunity to be heard. If the order was never served and the respondent violates it, an officer is to notify them and give them a chance to comply before enforcing.
Firearms: What Texas Law Actually Does and Does Not Require
Firearms are where a protective order does the most damage to a respondent, and where the law is most often described inaccurately. Any Austin protective order attorney should raise this in the first meeting.
Texas. Under Penal Code Section 46.04(c), a person subject to a Chapter 85 protective order commits a Class A misdemeanor by possessing a firearm after receiving notice of the order. Under Section 85.022(d) the court must suspend the respondent's handgun license.
Federal. 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(8) bars possession by a person subject to a qualifying order, and the penalty is up to 15 years. The Supreme Court upheld that statute in United States v. Rahimi in 2024, in a case that came out of a Texas protective order. A qualifying order requires a hearing with actual notice and an opportunity to participate, which means a temporary ex parte order does not qualify but a final order generally will.
The part almost every page gets wrong. Texas prohibits possession but provides no surrender or relinquishment procedure. There is no statutory mechanism compelling a respondent to turn firearms over. What gets surrendered is the handgun license, not the guns. That gap surprises applicants who assume the order disarms someone automatically, and it does not relieve a respondent of the possession offense.
Talk to an Austin Protective Order Lawyer
Whether you need protection from family violence or you have been served with an application, the first conversation with an Austin protective order attorney should tell you where you actually stand: which order fits your situation, what the hearing will turn on, and what the order would mean beyond the courtroom.
Call (512) 561-5003. The consultation is free and confidential. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 first.
Summary
Three things decide most of these cases. Which order you actually need, since a divorce restraining order is contempt-only and cannot remove anyone from a home, while a protective order is criminally enforceable. What the court has to find, which since September 2023 is simply whether family violence occurred, with no future-risk element. And what the order does afterward, from the Class A misdemeanor floor on any violation to the state and federal firearms bars.
If you need a protective order in Austin, or you have been served with one, call the Austin protective order lawyers at SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary purpose of a protective order?
To stop family violence, dating violence, stalking, or sexual assault by placing enforceable limits on the respondent. Unlike a divorce restraining order, it is backed by the criminal law: once it is in place, violating it is an offense an officer can arrest for.
How long does a final protective order last in Texas?
Up to two years by default under Section 85.025. It can run longer, up to the respondent's lifetime, where the court finds serious bodily injury or the respondent has been subject to two or more prior protective orders involving the same applicant. A respondent generally cannot ask to review it for a year.
What happens if someone violates a protective order?
It is a crime under Penal Code Section 25.07, not just contempt. Class A misdemeanor at baseline; a state jail felony if committed while possessing a deadly weapon, which took effect September 1, 2025; and a third-degree felony with two or more prior convictions or where the violation was an assault or stalking. Reconciling does not undo the order.
Can out-of-state protective orders be enforced in Texas?
Yes, and no registration in Texas is required. Federal law and Chapter 88 of the Family Code make a valid out-of-state order enforceable here, provided the issuing court had jurisdiction and the respondent had notice and a chance to be heard.
What can I expect during a free consultation with an Austin protective order lawyer?
A straight read on which order fits your facts, what the hearing will turn on, and what the order means beyond the courtroom, including firearms, custody, and the criminal exposure that attaches to a violation. We handle both applicants and respondents, so we will tell you where your position is weak as well as where it is strong.