Terms of use
These terms apply to avodefencelawyers.com.au. This site publishes general information about apprehended violence orders in New South Wales. If you do not accept these terms, please do not use the site.
General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.
Last updated: 23 September 2026
Most of what follows exists to make one thing unambiguous: reading this website does not make us your lawyers, and nothing here is advice about your situation.
That is not a disclaimer written to avoid responsibility. What happens in an apprehended violence order matter turns on particulars — what the order says, who applied, what is alleged, what date is on your paperwork — and a page written for everyone cannot know any of them.
General information, not legal advice
AVO Defence Lawyers is an informational website about apprehended violence orders in New South Wales. Legal services offered through this website are provided by Jameson Law, and we and us in these terms mean that firm.
Everything on this site is general information about the law and procedure in this State. It is not advice, it is not a substitute for advice about your circumstances, and it is not an offer to act for you.
Where a page states a rule, it lists the official sources it relies on. Those sources are the authority and this site is not. If the two ever differ, the official source is right.
Working out how the law applies to you takes a conversation about your facts. How we work sets out what that involves, and our guides are written to help you prepare for it, not to replace it.
Never work out what your order requires from this website. The conditions that bind you are the ones written on the order you were served with, and they apply from the moment you are served.
What this site will not help anyone do
This site is written for people who have had an application made against them. It is not written to help anyone avoid an order that protects somebody, and it does not treat applications as presumptively unjustified.
Nothing here should be read as a way around a condition. If a condition prohibits contact, contact is prohibited whoever begins it and whatever the protected person says, and only a court can change an order. Where a condition is unworkable, the route is an application to vary it.
We will not advise anyone on how to contact a protected person in breach of an order, how to locate a person who does not want to be found, or how to use these proceedings to gain an advantage in a family law matter.
If you are in immediate danger, call 000. Support services lists independent services, including services for people who want to change their own behaviour.
Accuracy and currency
The law in this area is amended, and procedure changes with it. A page that was accurate when it was written may not be accurate when you read it.
Where a page carries a review date, treat that date as the limit of what we are telling you. It means the page matched the official sources on that day. It does not promise the page still matches them today.
Some things are deliberately left off this site because publishing them invites reliance on a figure that moves. How long an order runs, how long a licence consequence lasts and what a penalty may be are decided under legislation that is amended and by a court on the facts, so we describe the mechanism and link to the source instead of printing a number.
- Check what binds you on the order you were served with, and with the court that made it.
- Check the law itself in the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW) on the NSW legislation website.
- Check that anyone advising you holds a current practising certificate, on the Law Society of New South Wales register of solicitors.
The date and the court on your own paperwork are the ones that matter. If you cannot read them, or you have lost the document, contact the court registry rather than guessing.
When we become your lawyers, and when we do not
Reading this site does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Neither does sending the enquiry form, and neither does the reply you receive to it.
The relationship begins when three things have happened: we have run a conflict check and found nothing that prevents us acting, we have agreed to act for you, and you have signed the costs agreement we send you. Until that last step, we are not your lawyers, whatever has been discussed in the meantime.
Costs are dealt with in writing before work starts. Costs disclosure by a law practice in New South Wales is governed by the Legal Profession Uniform Law, which requires the practice to tell you in writing how its legal costs will be calculated and what it estimates the total will be. The costs agreement is a separate document, and you do not have to sign it the day it reaches you. The Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner publishes fact sheets explaining what a disclosure has to contain and what you can do if you disagree with a bill.
How we work describes the sequence in more detail, including what happens if the conflict check means we cannot act.
What you send us before we act
Keep a first enquiry short. Tell us which court, the date on your paperwork and whether an order is already in force. That is usually enough for us to say whether we can help and what the next step would be.
Material you send before we act for you may not attract legal professional privilege. We also cannot promise to hold it in confidence if it turns out we already act for someone on the other side of your matter, which is what the conflict check exists to find out. In these matters that is not a remote possibility: both people in a family sometimes look for help in the same place.
How information is handled once we do hold it is set out in the privacy policy, which also explains why you should think about who can see your device before you send anything.
Links to other sites
This site links to Australian legislation, court, police and legal regulator pages, and to independent support services, because those bodies are the authority for what they publish. We do not control them, we cannot guarantee a link still works, and we are not responsible for what sits at the other end of it.
If a link has moved, search the same body’s own site rather than relying on a copy of the page somewhere else. Legal information reproduced on third-party sites goes out of date quietly, and a superseded provision reads exactly like a current one.
A link is not an endorsement. The support services listed on this site are independent of us and we have no arrangement with any of them.
Copyright
Copyright in the text, layout and design of this site is owned by Jameson Law or its licensors, and is protected by the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).
You are welcome to read these pages, print them and share them for your own use, and to quote a short passage with a link back. Please do not republish a page in full, reuse the copy on another site, or present this material as someone else’s work.
Images and icons may be licensed from third parties and remain subject to the licences they came with. Material reproduced from an Australian government source remains subject to the terms set by the body that published it.
Availability, and what we are responsible for
We take care with what is published here and we work from official sources. We do not warrant that the site is free of error, that it is complete, or that it will be available without interruption.
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for loss arising from reliance on the general information published on this site. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies a right or guarantee under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot lawfully be excluded.
Jameson Law’s liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. A scheme of that kind limits the occupational liability of participating solicitors for the legal services they provide, where the solicitor meets the requirements of the scheme instrument. It is created by statute rather than by these terms, and it is about legal services, not about a website.
Which law applies, and changes to these terms
These terms are governed by the law of New South Wales, and the courts of New South Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute about them.
We may change these terms. The version on this page is the current one, and the date shown at the top is when it last changed. If any part of them cannot be enforced, the rest continues to apply.
If a part of this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, accessibility explains the standard the site is built to and how to report a barrier. We would rather hear about it than have you give up on the page.
How to reach the practice
Use the enquiry form, or email if you would rather not use a form.
Through the form on our contact page.
AVO Defence Lawyers is an informational website about apprehended violence orders in New South Wales. Legal services are provided by Jameson Law.
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation
If you are in immediate danger, call 000.
Official sources
- Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW), NSW legislation
- Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), Federal Register of Legislation
- Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) — the Australian Consumer Law is Schedule 2
- Law Society of NSW — Register of Solicitors
- Law Society of NSW — Professional Standards Scheme
- Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner — fact sheets on costs and hiring a lawyer
- Local Court of New South Wales — Apprehended Violence Orders (AVOs)
- Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 (NSW), NSW legislation