AVO Lawyers Sydney

AVO Lawyers: What You Need to Know

An apprehended violence order is not a criminal conviction, but its consequences can be severe and lasting: where you can live, whether you can see your children, your firearms licence, your employment in certain fields, and your exposure to criminal charges if any condition is alleged to be breached.

Korn Tlais Defence Lawyers act for people responding to AVO applications across Sydney and New South Wales, in both domestic (ADVO) and personal (APVO) matters, and defend the criminal charges that so often travel with them.

AVO Matters We Handle

We advise and appear at every stage of the AVO process:

• Defending AVO applications

  Consenting to an order without admissions is sometimes right, and sometimes a serious mistake. We assess the evidence and the consequences before any decision is made, and contest applications that should be contested.

• Provisional and interim orders

  Orders made early, often on one side of the story. The conditions imposed at this stage can upend living and family arrangements, and can frequently be varied.

• Variations and revocations

  Conditions that made sense at the start, or never did, can be varied as circumstances change: residence, contact and exclusion conditions in particular.

• Breach of AVO allegations

  Breaching an AVO is a criminal offence, and allegations are often laid on thin or contested accounts. These charges deserve a full defence, not an assumption of guilt.

• AVOs alongside criminal charges

  Where an assault or intimidation charge travels with the application, the two must be defended as one strategy, because what happens in one shapes the other.

Why 'Just Consent to It' Is Often Bad Advice

An AVO’s conditions live with you for the life of the order. They can exclude you from your own home, restrict contact with your children, end a firearms licence and complicate employment that requires security or working-with-children clearances. And any alleged breach, however minor or disputed, is a criminal charge.

Consenting without admissions has its place, it can end a matter quickly where the conditions are tolerable. But the decision should be made with full sight of the consequences and the strength of the application, not under pressure at a first mention.

How We Defend AVO Matters

We test the application’s evidence the way we test any prosecution case: the account’s consistency, the objective material that supports or contradicts it, and whether the fears asserted are reasonably held as the law requires. Defended AVO hearings are winnable, and we prepare them properly.

Where an order in some form is inevitable or acceptable, we negotiate the conditions, because the difference between a workable order and an unworkable one is the difference between getting on with life and living one allegation away from a criminal charge.

Common Questions