Which court, which order

Everything an order can contain

The guided questions above filter this list. It is reproduced in full here, because the relief that gets left out of petitions is usually the relief nobody knew to ask for.

Where a case can be filed

• Family Court may not be available. Family Court Act section 812 reaches people related by blood or marriage, people married or formerly married to each other, people who have a child in common, and people who are or have been in an intimate relationship. None of these people need to live together. If you fall outside all of them, a criminal complaint or a civil action may still be open to you, and an attorney should look at the facts rather than the category.
• Erie County Family Court, 1 Niagara Plaza, Buffalo. Walk in to the Petition Processing Unit on the 4th floor; no appointment is needed. You can file a family offense petition yourself, without a lawyer and without a filing fee. A judge or referee can issue a temporary order of protection the same day, before the other person is served.
• Erie County Supreme Court, 25 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. With a matrimonial action pending, the Supreme Court can issue an order of protection under Domestic Relations Law sections 240(3) and 252. You do not have to run a separate Family Court case alongside your divorce.
• Criminal Court. The court handling the charges can issue its own order of protection as a condition of release. Family Court Act section 814 directs court rules facilitating record sharing and communication between the criminal and family courts. With an active criminal domestic violence case, your matter may be eligible for Integrated Domestic Violence court, where one judge hears the related criminal, family and matrimonial cases together.

What an order of protection can be written to include

• Stay away, and refrain from. The order can cover your home, your workplace, your school and the children's school, and can prohibit contact by third parties and by electronic means.
• Temporary support. Family Court Act section 828 and Domestic Relations Law section 240 authorize temporary child support. Domestic Relations Law section 236(B)(5-a) covers temporary spousal maintenance. This is the relief that makes leaving financially possible, and it is routinely left out of petitions that could have asked for it.
• Your housing. Exclusive occupancy of the residence. Separately, Real Property Law section 227-c lets a victim of domestic violence terminate a residential lease by written notice to the landlord, effective no earlier than 30 days out, where a qualifying order of protection is in place. Without one, the tenant first gets a court order under section 227-c(2)(b), and Domestic Relations Law section 240(3)(f) authorizes a matrimonial court to issue it.
• Your pets. Domestic Relations Law section 240(3)(a)(7) and Family Court Act section 842(i) allow companion animals to be protected by the order.
• Your devices. Family Court Act section 842(k) allows the court to order the other person to refrain from remotely controlling any connected device affecting your home, vehicle or property. That reaches smart locks, cameras, thermostats and car tracking.
• Your address. Family Court Act section 154-b(2) allows the court to keep your address confidential. Ask for it at filing, not after.
• Medical costs. Expenses for medical care and treatment arising from the incidents behind the order can be allocated under Family Court Act section 842(h). Separately, Family Court Act section 828(4) authorizes temporary child support with no showing of emergency need.
• The children. They can be named as protected parties, Family Court Act section 821-a(2)(b) and Domestic Relations Law section 240(3)(a)(1), (3) and (5). Family Court Act section 842 lets the court award custody during the term of the order. In a pending matrimonial that custody power is Domestic Relations Law section 240(3).
• Firearms. Domestic Relations Law section 240(3)(h) and Family Court Act sections 842-a and 846-a authorize an order to surrender firearms and to suspend or revoke a firearms license. A temporary order under Family Court Act section 828 triggers section 842-a, and section 828(1)(a) requires the court to consider access to weapons. Federal law separately restricts possession under 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(8) and (g)(9).

Worth knowing

• Your relationship category exists because of Melanie's Law, enacted November 25, 2024. It amended Family Court Act section 812(1) by adding subsection (f), and Criminal Procedure Law section 530.11(1), to cover people related by blood or marriage to someone who is or was in an intimate relationship with the other party. Before that amendment you would have had no standing. Read the detail on Melanie's Law.
• If you do file for divorce, the Supreme Court can issue an order of protection within that action under Domestic Relations Law sections 240(3) and 252, so the protection and the divorce move together. Worth raising with counsel before you choose where to start.
• Ask for a copy of the Domestic Incident Report. Police reports and other official documentation are collateral evidence, and they carry weight independent of your own account. The Family Justice Center has a Buffalo Police officer and report technician on site for incidents within the city.
• On custody: since 1996, New York law requires a court to consider the effect of proven domestic violence on the best interests of the child, whether or not the child witnessed it. Since 2009 the court must state on the record how those findings factored into its determination. Both requirements sit in Domestic Relations Law section 240(1)(a). Because New York has no codified best interests checklist, that makes domestic violence one of the very few considerations the Legislature wrote into the statute itself. Appellate courts have also found, on the facts of particular cases, that the circumstances producing an order of protection can demonstrate an inability to co-parent, which weighs against joint custody.
• Mediation and couples counseling are generally not appropriate where there is domestic violence, because they assume a balance of power that is not there. Shuttle case conferencing, supervised exchange, no contact exchanges and app-only communication about the children are the alternatives a well-drafted order can specify.
• There is a second and separate tool: an Extreme Risk Protection Order, New York's red flag law. A family or household member can petition for one, and it does not require a criminal charge or a family offense finding. It is its own proceeding with its own standard. Weinrieb Law handles ERPO matters on the petitioner side only.
• Not being sure is common and it is worth resolving before the hearing. Describe what you have seen: a safe, a case, a locked drawer, a hunting trip, a relative's house. The court can act on a described pattern, and a surrender provision is far easier to include at the start than to add later.
• Duration and modification: ask for a longer order where aggravating circumstances are present. Family Court Act section 844 covers reconsideration and modification, for good cause shown and after a hearing, so an order is not fixed forever if things change.
• VINE is a free notification service that tells you about a defendant's release from custody. Ask an advocate to sign you up.