Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence Lawyers in North Hollywood

Free consultation. Call (818) 583-8255. Someone answers 24 hours a day.
If you call during business hours, you will speak with us the same day. After hours, one of our experienced domestic violence defense attorneys will return your call the next business day. If it is an emergency — an arrest tonight, a protective order just served, or police asking to speak with you — we handle those after hours and on weekends.

A domestic violence arrest moves fast. Police take someone to jail, a judge signs an order that keeps you out of your own home, and the District Attorney files charges within days. Meanwhile you still have a job to keep, children to see, and a landlord, a licensing board, or an immigration officer who may hear about all of this.

We defend people accused of domestic violence in North Hollywood, Burbank, Van Nuys, courts across Los Angeles County, and throughout Southern California. We have tried these cases, litigated the protective orders that come with them, and persuaded prosecutors to reduce or drop charges before trial. Call us and we will tell you plainly where you stand.

What California Treats as Domestic Violence

California defines the relationship broadly. The law covers a current or former spouse, a fiancé, someone you live with or used to live with, the other parent of your child, and anyone you have dated. Prosecutors charge in-laws, roommates and adult children under related statutes.

The conduct reaches further than most people expect. You do not have to hit anyone. Grabbing a wrist, blocking a doorway, taking a phone during an argument, or sending a threatening text can support a charge. Injuries help the prosecution, but the District Attorney files plenty of cases where nobody was hurt and nobody called an ambulance.

The Charges Prosecutors File Most Often

  • Penal Code 243(e)(1), domestic battery. Any unwanted touching of a partner. No injury required. A misdemeanor.
  • Penal Code 273.5, corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant. Requires a visible injury, even a small one. Prosecutors can file it as a misdemeanor or a felony.
  • Penal Code 422, criminal threats. Words alone can qualify if they put someone in sustained fear.
  • Penal Code 273a, child endangerment. Often added when children were in the house during the argument.
  • Penal Code 591 and 236, damaging a phone line or preventing someone from leaving a room.
  • Penal Code 273.6, violating a protective order — the charge people bring on themselves after the arrest.

The Emergency Protective Order: What It Forbids, and the Mistake That Turns One Case Into Two

In many domestic violence arrests, the police procure an Emergency Protective Order (EPO) on behalf of the victim before the accused ever sees a courtroom. READ IT CAREFULLY, because it is a court order: breaking it is a separate criminal charge, and it is the most common way a defensible case becomes two cases.

An order usually does all of this at once:

  • Bars every kind of contact with the protected person — in person, by phone, text, email or social media, and through a friend or relative passing on a message for you.
  • Orders you out of a home you may own or pay for, and keeps you a set distance away from it.
  • Limits or suspends your time with your children until a judge revisits it.
  • Requires you to surrender any firearms you own or possess and to file proof with the court. The deadlines are short, and missing one is itself a violation.

The protected person cannot lift the order. If they call you, invite you home, or ask to meet, the order still binds you, and only you. Prosecutors charge people every week for contact the protected person started. They read the jail calls and they pull the phone records.

If the order takes your home or your children, ask the court to change it. Do not ignore it and do not negotiate around it. We take that up immediately — often at the arraignment. Call (818) 583-8255.

Misdemeanor or Felony? How Prosecutors Decide

The District Attorney weighs the injury, the history between you, whether children saw it, whether a weapon appeared, and what you said to the police. The same argument can produce a misdemeanor for one person and a felony for another.

A misdemeanor conviction can carry up to a year in county jail, fines, three years of probation, and a 52-week batterer’s intervention program. A felony conviction can carry a state prison term, larger fines, and sentencing enhancements when the injury is serious. Judges impose the 52-week program in nearly every domestic violence case, and it starts long before the case ends.

Prosecutors also reduce charges. We give them reasons to: gaps in the account, injuries that do not match the story, a complaining witness whose version has changed, a client with no record and a job to lose.

What a Conviction Costs You Outside the Courtroom

  • Your guns. A conviction ends your right to own a firearm in California, and a federal ban follows a qualifying conviction for life.
  • Your children. Family courts presume that a person convicted of domestic violence should not have custody. Rebutting that presumption takes work and time.
  • Your immigration status. A domestic violence conviction is a deportable offense, and it can end a green card application. Tell us early if you are not a citizen.
  • Your licence. Nurses, contractors, teachers, security guards, real estate agents and lawyers all answer to a board that asks about convictions.
  • Your job and your housing. Background checks show the conviction, and landlords run them too.

What to Do Tonight

  • Say nothing about the incident. Give the officers your name and identification. Then stop. “I want a lawyer” ends the questioning, and it cannot be used against you.
  • Do not contact the protected person. Not to apologise, not to explain, not through anyone else.
  • Write down what happened while it is fresh, and keep it for your lawyer alone.
  • Save the evidence. Texts, call logs, photographs, doorbell and security video, and the names of anyone who saw or heard the argument. Video overwrites itself in days.
  • Photograph your own injuries, including scratches and bruises that surface a day later.
  • Stay off social media. Prosecutors read it, and so does the family court.
  • Call a defense lawyer before the arraignment. What happens at that first hearing shapes the protective order, your bail, and where you sleep.

When the Alleged Victim Wants to Drop the Case

People often assume the case ends when the other person recants or asks the prosecutor to drop it. It does not. The District Attorney decides whether to file charges and whether to continue, and in Los Angeles County they regularly press on without a cooperating witness. Prosecutors expect recantation and prepare for it: they use the 911 recording, the officers’ observations, photographs, and statements made at the scene.

A witness who wants the case dropped still matters, and their account still has to be tested. We do that properly, through the court. Coaching a witness, or asking someone else to, is witness tampering — a far more serious charge than the one you started with.

How We Defend Domestic Violence Cases

We start with the evidence the prosecution has and the evidence nobody has gathered yet. Body-worn camera footage, 911 audio, medical records, phone extractions and neighbours’ accounts often tell a different story from the arrest report.

Depending on the facts, we argue:

  • Self-defense. The person arrested is frequently the one who called for help last, not the one who started it.
  • The injury does not match the account. Medical evidence and photographs can contradict the story the report tells.
  • False or exaggerated allegations, which surface often in custody disputes and break-ups.
  • Mutual combat, where officers picked a side and charged only one person.
  • An accident, where contact happened but intent did not.
  • Constitutional violations, including a search or an interrogation that the law does not permit.

Where the evidence is strong, we work on the outcome instead: a reduced charge, a dismissal after counselling, terms that keep your job and your firearm rights where the law allows, and a record you can live with.

Answers to the Questions We Are Asked Most

We have written about these cases for years. If you are looking for something specific tonight, start here, or read everything we have published on the subject on our blog.

Right After an Arrest

When the Alleged Victim Wants Out

The Charges and the Penalties

What It Can Cost You

Defending the Case

Talk to a Defense Lawyer Today

Debra Wegman and Michael Levin have defended criminal cases in Los Angeles County for more than 70 years between them. We answer the phone, we explain what you are facing in plain words, and we tell you what we can and cannot do about it.

If the police have arrested you or someone in your family for domestic violence in North Hollywood, Burbank, Van Nuys or anywhere in Los Angeles County, call 818-583-8255. The consultation is free and what you tell us stays between us.