The California Restraining Order Process, Step by Step

By Matthew Barhoma, Esq. — California State Bar No. 319339 | Last updated: November 2026

The California restraining order process has eleven steps. A petitioner files a request with the superior court; a judge rules on a temporary restraining order, usually within one court day, based on the petitioner’s declaration alone; the respondent is personally served; the respondent may file a written response; both sides prepare evidence; a hearing is held, generally within 21 days of the temporary order (25 with good cause); the judge grants, denies, or dismisses the request, usually the same day; the order lasts up to five years; and the order may later be modified, renewed, terminated, or appealed. The same sequence applies, with different forms and burdens of proof, to domestic violence, civil harassment, workplace violence, elder abuse, and gun violence restraining orders. Every step has a deadline, and most deadlines are measured in days, not weeks. This page is the map; each step explains what happens, what the law requires, the forms involved, and what a petitioner and a respondent should each be doing. The Restraining Order Law Firm handles every step for both sides throughout Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura Counties. Call (888) 808-2179 for a confidential consultation.

The process at a glance

Step 0: Emergency protection before anything is filed

If a person is in immediate danger, law enforcement can obtain an emergency protective order from an on-call judge by telephone at any hour (Fam. Code § 6250). The EPO takes effect at once and lasts up to seven days — enough time for the protected person to file a request for a temporary restraining order. It requires no filing by the protected person and no court appearance, but it expires on its own. If an arrest is made and charges follow, the criminal court will usually issue its own criminal protective order, which runs on a separate track. See emergency protective orders.

Step 1: Filing the request

The petitioner files a request with the superior court. The form depends on the order: DV-100 (domestic violence), CH-100 (civil harassment), WV-100 (workplace violence, filed by the employer), EA-100 (elder or dependent adult abuse), or GV-100 (gun violence). Each is accompanied by a confidential CLETS-001 form, which gives law enforcement the information needed to enter the order in the statewide database and is not served on the respondent. Domestic violence petitioners with children also file DV-105 (custody and visitation request) and, where support is sought, the income and expense declaration.

Which order. The relationship between the parties decides it. A domestic violence order requires one of the relationships in Family Code § 6211: spouses, partners, cohabitants, dating partners, co-parents, children, close relatives, current or former. Everyone else is a civil harassment case. Filing under the wrong statute is a recurring, avoidable reason requests are denied. Our petitioner’s guide walks through the choice.

Where. In the superior court of the county where the petitioner lives or is temporarily located, where the respondent lives, or where the conduct occurred (Fam. Code § 6301(a); Code Civ. Proc. § 395). The petitioner need not be a California resident. Many counties route domestic violence cases to family-law courthouses and civil harassment cases to civil departments; the clerk’s office directs filing.

Fees. There is no filing fee for a domestic violence restraining order (Fam. Code § 6222), an elder or dependent adult abuse restraining order (Welf. & Inst. Code § 15657.03(r)(1)), or a gun violence restraining order (Pen. Code § 18121). A civil harassment request is free where it alleges violence, a threat of violence, or stalking (Code Civ. Proc. § 527.6(y)(2)(A)), and a workplace violence petition is free on the same showing (§ 527.8(x)); otherwise the standard first-paper civil filing fee applies, and a fee waiver (Form FW-001) is available on an income showing. The sheriff serves domestic violence restraining order papers at no charge.

What the request must contain. A sworn declaration describing the conduct — what was done, when, where, by whom, with what effect — connected to the legal standard. Under Family Code § 6300, a domestic violence order may issue on “reasonable proof of a past act or acts of abuse,” and the court may act on the petitioner’s affidavit alone. The declaration is the single most important document in the case: it decides whether the temporary order issues, and it frames the hearing. Our domestic violence temporary restraining order page covers drafting in detail.

Step 2: The temporary restraining order decision

A judge reviews the request, usually the same day it is filed or the next court day, without the respondent present and without a hearing. This is the ex parte stage. The judge decides on the papers whether to issue a temporary restraining order (DV-110, CH-110, WV-110, EA-110, or GV-110) that stays in effect until the hearing.

The standard. For a domestic violence order, reasonable proof of a past act or acts of abuse as defined in Family Code § 6203. The court may not deny the request solely because the respondent was not given notice (Fam. Code § 6300(b)), and the clerk may not refuse to accept a complete request for filing (§ 6300(c)). For a civil harassment order, a showing of reasonable proof of harassment and great or irreparable harm.

If the TRO is granted. The temporary order typically includes personal-conduct orders (no abuse, no contact), stay-away orders, and in domestic violence cases may include a move-out order, temporary custody and visitation, and protection of pets and family members. It takes effect against the respondent when served, and it includes a firearm prohibition that requires surrender within 24 hours of service.

If the TRO is denied. The case is not over. Family Code § 6320.5 requires the court to state its reasons for denying a domestic violence TRO and to give the petitioner a noticed hearing within 21 days (25 with good cause) unless the petitioner waives it. The respondent must be served with the request and notice at least five days before that hearing. A denied TRO means the petitioner has no protection in the interim, but the full order can still issue at the hearing. In In re Marriage of A.M. & R.Y. (2025) 110 Cal.App.5th 1115, the Court of Appeal held that a court may deny a temporary order on the totality of the circumstances only if it states that reason, and may not deny because the dispute arises in a family-law case.

Step 3: Service on the respondent

The respondent must be personally served with the request, the temporary order (or the order denying it), the notice of hearing (DV-109, CH-109, WV-109, EA-109, GV-109), and blank response forms. Until service, the temporary order generally cannot be enforced against the respondent and the hearing cannot proceed.

Who may serve. Any person 18 or older who is not a party to the case — a friend, a process server, or the sheriff or marshal. The petitioner may not serve the papers personally. The sheriff serves domestic violence restraining order papers free of charge (Fam. Code § 6383), and that is usually the right choice when the respondent is dangerous.

When. Service must be completed at least five days before the hearing: in domestic violence cases under Family Code § 243(a), in civil harassment cases under Code of Civil Procedure § 527.6(m)(1), in workplace violence cases under § 527.8(n), and in elder abuse cases under Welfare and Institutions Code § 15657.03(k)(1). The court may shorten the time for service on the petitioner’s motion or its own.

Proof of service. The server completes and signs a proof of service (DV-200, CH-200) that is filed with the court before the hearing. No proof of service, no hearing: the court will continue the matter and, in domestic violence cases, reissue the temporary order.

If the respondent cannot be found. The court continues the hearing and keeps the temporary order in effect while the petitioner keeps trying. In domestic violence cases, if the court finds the petitioner has made diligent efforts and the respondent is evading service, it may authorize an alternative method of service — publication, or mail plus delivery to the home or workplace — under Family Code § 6340(a)(2), with a continuance to allow for it.

Once served. The temporary order is enforceable by every law enforcement agency in the state through CLETS. The respondent’s 24-hour firearm-relinquishment clock starts. And the respondent’s own clock starts: the hearing is days away.

Step 4: The respondent’s written response

The respondent may file a written response: DV-120 (domestic violence), CH-120 (civil harassment), WV-120, EA-120, or GV-120. Filing a response is not a prerequisite to appearing at the hearing, but it is the respondent’s first and best opportunity to put their account, their evidence, and their requested orders in front of the judge, who will read it before the hearing. The response must be filed with the court and served on the petitioner by a non-party adult, and in domestic violence cases should be served at least five court days before the hearing to be assured of consideration — though courts routinely accept late responses.

A response should answer each allegation specifically, set out the respondent’s own chronology, attach the complete message record and other evidence, and request specific orders (denial, and in cases with children, custody and visitation). It should not be a character attack, and if a criminal case is pending or possible, it should be written with the Fifth Amendment in mind, because it is a sworn statement. The respondent must obey the temporary order in the meantime; under N.T. v. H.T. (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 595, a violation of the temporary order is itself abuse that can support the final order. Our respondent’s guide covers the response and the first 72 hours after service in detail.

Step 5: Preparing evidence and witnesses

The weeks between service and hearing are when the case is actually built. Both sides should be assembling the same categories of evidence.

Communications. Complete text, email, and social-media threads exported with dates and both sides visible — not isolated screenshots, which the other side will supplement. Call logs. Voicemails, with transcriptions.

Documents. Photographs of injuries and property damage, dated. Medical records. Police reports and 911 recordings, requested promptly. Financial records in financial-control cases. Location-sharing and account-access histories in monitoring cases.

Witnesses. Anyone who saw or heard the conduct, saw a party immediately after, or can speak to a pattern. Witnesses may submit written declarations under penalty of perjury and should be prepared to testify live, because the court may require it and the other side may demand cross-examination.

Organization. A chronological timeline that ties each exhibit to each incident. Judges hearing twenty cases in a morning reward the party whose evidence is organized.

Subpoenas. Where records or witnesses are not voluntarily available, a subpoena (Form SUBP-001 or SUBP-002) can compel them. Civil discovery is limited in restraining order proceedings, and the compressed timeline means subpoenas must go out immediately.

Evidence that fails. Hearsay without an exception. Undated screenshots. Character evidence unconnected to the allegations. Recordings made in violation of Penal Code § 632 (confidential communications recorded without consent), which the court may exclude and which can expose the recording party to liability — though recordings of conduct that is not a confidential communication, and recordings made to gather evidence of specified crimes under § 633.5, are treated differently. These questions are fact-specific; get advice before relying on a recording.

Step 6: The hearing

The hearing is held generally within 21 days of the temporary order, or 25 days with good cause (Fam. Code § 242; Code Civ. Proc. § 527.6). It is a contested evidentiary hearing — in practice, the trial. There is no jury. The judge has read the request, the temporary order, and the response. The petitioner presents first: testimony, exhibits, witnesses. The respondent cross-examines. The respondent then presents, and the petitioner cross-examines. Each side argues briefly. The rules of evidence apply, though more flexibly than in a civil trial, and the judge may question the parties directly. In domestic violence cases the court may not require the petitioner to attend mediation or a settlement conference before the hearing. Many courts permit remote appearances.

Continuances. Either side may ask for more time. In domestic violence cases the respondent is entitled to one continuance as a matter of course on request (Fam. Code § 245), and the court may grant further continuances for good cause to either side; the temporary order remains in effect until the continued date (§ 245(c)). Civil harassment cases carry a parallel rule in Code of Civil Procedure § 527.6. A continuance to obtain counsel or evidence is routine on a first request.

Failure to appear. If the respondent does not appear after proper service, the court may proceed and issue the order by default on the petitioner’s evidence, for the full term. If the petitioner does not appear, the court will typically dismiss the request and dissolve the temporary order.

The live California restraining order hearing page is the deep dive on this step — what to bring, how testimony works, cross-examination, remote appearances, and what judges look for.

Step 7: The judge’s decision

The judge usually rules from the bench the same day. There are three outcomes.

Granted. The court issues a restraining order after hearing (DV-130, CH-130, WV-130, EA-130, or GV-130). For a domestic violence order, the court must find past abuse by a preponderance of the evidence; for a civil harassment order, harassment by clear and convincing evidence. The order may include every term the court finds justified — personal conduct, stay-away, move-out, custody and visitation, support, pets, protection of additional family or household members (on good cause, Fam. Code § 6340), and firearm relinquishment. The court may award attorney’s fees to a prevailing petitioner in domestic violence cases (Fam. Code § 6344) and to the prevailing party in civil harassment cases (Code Civ. Proc. § 527.6(s)). The order is entered in CLETS.

Denied. The temporary order dissolves and the case ends, without prejudice to a new petition based on new conduct. A prevailing respondent in a civil harassment case may seek attorney’s fees. A denial is appealable by the petitioner.

Dismissed. The petitioner withdraws the request, often as part of a negotiated resolution — sometimes paired with an informal agreement about contact that is not entered in CLETS. A dismissal leaves no order and no finding.

A stipulated order — the respondent agrees to an order without a finding of abuse — is a fourth possibility. It avoids a finding but still carries CLETS entry, the firearm prohibition, background-check visibility, and criminal exposure for violations, and mutual orders require the detailed findings of Family Code § 6305. Respondents should not stipulate without advice; see our discussion on the respondent’s guide.

Step 7a: How long the order lasts

Custody, visitation, and support orders made in a domestic violence case survive the expiration of the protective order (Fam. Code § 6340(a)(1)). See permanent domestic violence restraining orders.

Step 8: Modifying the order

Either party may ask the court to change the terms of an order — the stay-away distance, the no-contact provision, custody or visitation, the addition or removal of protected persons — by filing a request (DV-300 in domestic violence cases; CH-600 in civil harassment cases) and serving the other party, or by filing a written stipulation. The Judicial Council adopted dedicated modification forms following SB 459. A protected person who wants contact with the restrained person must ask the court to modify the order; the protected person cannot waive it informally, and the restrained person violates the order by accepting the invitation. The court applies a changed-circumstances analysis and the same protective purpose that supported the original order.

Step 9: Renewing the order

A domestic violence restraining order may be renewed on request made at any time within the three months before it expires, for five years or permanently, “without a showing of further abuse since the issuance of the original order” (Fam. Code § 6345(a)). The standard, from Ritchie v. Konrad (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 1275, is whether the protected party has a reasonable apprehension of future abuse — judged on the original abuse, any violations, changed circumstances, and the burden the order imposes on the restrained party. Later decisions, including Lister v. Bowen (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 319 and Cueto v. Dozier (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 550, confirm that the protected party need not prove new abuse and that the inquiry is forward-looking. Renewal is requested on Form DV-700, served on the restrained party, and decided at a hearing. Civil harassment orders are likewise renewable under Code of Civil Procedure § 527.6(j), on Form CH-700, within the three months before expiration. A restrained person who opposes renewal should appear and contest it: a renewal hearing is often the second — and last — chance to litigate the order.

Step 10: Terminating the order early

Either party may move to terminate an order before it expires, on the same forms used for modification, on a showing that the order is no longer necessary. A protected person’s request is usually granted. A restrained person’s request faces a higher practical bar: the court considers whether the circumstances that justified the order have changed and whether the protected person still has a reasonable apprehension of abuse. A restrained person who wants the order ended should build a record — compliance, time elapsed, changed circumstances — before filing. Note that termination of the civil order does not terminate a separate criminal protective order, which must be addressed in the criminal case.

Step 11: Appealing the decision

An order granting or denying a restraining order after hearing is appealable as an order granting or refusing an injunction (Code Civ. Proc. § 904.1(a)(6)). The notice of appeal must generally be filed within 60 days after the clerk or a party serves notice of entry of the order, or within 180 days of entry if no notice is served (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.104) — and the deadline is jurisdictional, meaning a late appeal is dismissed regardless of merit. Filing an appeal does not automatically stay the order; a restrained person must continue to comply while the appeal is pending.

The Court of Appeal reviews the grant or denial of a restraining order for abuse of discretion, and the trial court’s factual findings for substantial evidence — a deferential standard under which the appellate court does not reweigh credibility. Appeals succeed where the trial court applied the wrong legal standard: requiring physical violence (Rodriguez v. Menjivar (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 816; Hatley v. Southard (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 579), treating a single upsetting post as abuse (Curcio v. Pels (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 1), issuing a mutual order without the required findings (Isidora M. v. Silvino M. (2015) 239 Cal.App.4th 11), or denying a request because it arose in a custody dispute (In re Marriage of A.M. & R.Y. (2025) 110 Cal.App.5th 1115). A motion for reconsideration under Code of Civil Procedure § 1008 (within 10 days, on new facts or law) is a separate, narrower remedy and does not extend the appeal deadline. The firm handles restraining order appeals in the California Courts of Appeal.

Step 12: Attorney’s fees and costs

In domestic violence cases, the court may order the restrained party to pay the prevailing petitioner’s attorney’s fees and costs, and after notice and hearing may award fees to a prevailing respondent where the petition was not brought in good faith (Fam. Code § 6344). In civil harassment cases, the court may award fees and costs to the prevailing party, petitioner or respondent, in its discretion (Code Civ. Proc. § 527.6(s)). Fee requests should be made at the hearing, with a declaration supporting the amount. The firm has obtained an $11,000 attorney’s-fee award against a restrained party in a Los Angeles County domestic violence case, and in Parris J. v. Christopher U. (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 108 the Court of Appeal affirmed a $200,000 fee award in a coercive-control case. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Step 13: How long the whole process takes

From filing to order after hearing, the typical case runs three to six weeks: one court day for the temporary order, a hearing set within 21 days, and one continuance in many cases. Contested cases with multiple witnesses, parallel criminal charges, or evasive respondents can run two to four months. The order itself then lasts up to five years. An appeal adds roughly a year. The firm’s experience is that cases are decided far more by what the parties do in the first three weeks than by anything that happens afterward.

The dual track: when a criminal case runs alongside

Many domestic violence restraining orders coincide with an arrest or charge under Penal Code § 273.5, § 243(e)(1), § 422, or § 646.9, and the criminal court will issue its own criminal protective order under Penal Code § 136.2. The two proceedings have different judges, different standards, and different consequences, and they affect each other: testimony in the civil hearing can be used in the criminal case, a civil denial can be leverage in the criminal case, and a criminal conviction can supply the finding that triggers the custody presumption. The Restraining Order Law Firm, a d/b/a of Barhoma Law, P.C., handles both tracks together. See criminal protective orders and violating a California restraining order.

How the Restraining Order Law Firm handles the process

We represent petitioners and respondents at every step — drafting or answering the request, securing or opposing the temporary order, handling service, preparing evidence and witnesses, trying the hearing, and litigating modification, renewal, termination, and appeal. The firm’s results include domestic violence and civil harassment requests denied after trial at the Lamoreaux Justice Center, Stanley Mosk, Long Beach, Palm Springs, and Corona courthouses; petitions dismissed by negotiation at Stanley Mosk, Santa Monica, Santa Ana, Moreno Valley, and Whittier; an existing order set aside by motion at the Metropolitan Courthouse; and, for petitioners, orders granted after trial in Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino Counties, including a domestic violence order with $11,000 in fees awarded and an elder abuse order granted after trial. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

The firm appears in every courthouse in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura Counties, from offices at 835 Wilshire Blvd., Floor 5, Los Angeles 90017 and 695 Town Center Dr., #1200, Costa Mesa 92626.

Frequently asked questions

Consult With a Restraining Order Lawyer Today

Wherever you are in this process — about to file, just served, days from a hearing, or facing a renewal or appeal — the next step has a deadline. Call (888) 808-2179 or request a confidential consultation with the Restraining Order Law Firm. We will tell you exactly where your case stands, what the court will require, and what we would do next. If the situation is urgent, our 24/7 emergency help line is available now.

The Restraining Order Law Firm is a d/b/a of Barhoma Law, P.C. This page is attorney advertising and general information about California law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Statutes, forms, and deadlines change — verify all references with counsel before relying on them. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.