Recovering Costs and Clearing Your Record After a PO

So, we’ve been talking about POs and finally I want to talk about the aftermath and potential things that can happen and if you beat the PO, what are your options to recover the cost of your attorney? What are your options to wipe this black mark off your record?

My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m a Tulsa Fathers Rights Attorney here with Dads.Law where fathers are not disposable and the last topic I want to talk about related to POs is what remedies do you have once it’s been dismissed to clean up the mess that’s left behind?

Recovering Attorney’s Fees

Starting with attorney’s fees. So attorney’s fees are something of an uphill battle if you’re on defense in PO court because before you even get to ask for attorney’s fees, the court has to make certain findings. Specifically, it has to find that there is no victim and then generally speaking you’re talking about a situation where the court properly should find there’s no victim if there isn’t grounds to enter the PO. So that part should be satisfied but then there’s the issue of frivolity.

Frivolous pleading under law means that really there is no legitimate reason for filing this. It’s filed essentially for an improper purpose or just for a stupid reason, I guess to put it in really lay person’s terms and at that point then it becomes frivolous especially if the person had a reason to know or should have known or actually did know that it was improper. Now if you get that finding, you’re more or less entitled to your attorney’s fees and then it becomes an issue of what’s reasonable and this is again where you want to get legal counsel to represent you for this part two because typically if you get that prerequisite finding, then you’re having to address the fact that what is reasonable, how much is reasonable, what cost is reasonable, etc.

Expungement of the PO

The other remedy you also may have at your disposal if it’s dismissed is expungement. You can expunge a PO the day of, it’s about a 60-day waiting period, but then once that happens, you can file a petition to expunge it. You have to serve the other party and you have to serve the DA’s office on the expungement and then they have the opportunity to be heard in opposition of it, but you do have the ability to get expunged provided there was not a final protective order entered.

If a final protective order is entered, it’s generally not possible to expunge. The reason you might want to expunge it is even if it was ultimately denied, it could still be brought up later in a number of contexts including custody litigation, but also if you have to do a background check, they are a public record and a private employer may take issue with that and at the very least you don’t have to explain how you end up getting a PO for whatever bullshit happened between you and your ex. So expungement is potentially an option and it’s something to be aware of. Again, it requires some knowledge of the procedure to get it expunged, so it’s a good reason to have good counsel.

Contact Us for a Low-cost Strategy Session

In either case, if you want to try to pursue attorney’s fees or you want to attempt to expunge, you need a good lawyer and one place you can find a good P.O. lawyer in Oklahoma is at Dads.Law, where fathers are not disposable.