If Oklahoma P.O Is Bought Towards You It Carries Heavy Weight.
Video Transcribed: Should you hire an attorney to defend you in a protective order case? I’m Tulsa attorney James Wirth and I’m about to answer that question for you. Okay, so if someone files a protective order against you, should you hire an attorney? The answer on that one is relatively simple. Yes, you need to have an attorney. And the reason is is that these are very serious things.
You may say, “I don’t want any contact with that person anyway. So what does it matter?” And that part may be true, but what matters is there’s a lot of repercussions to having a protective order you might not be aware of. And there’s a lot of things that can happen in the court proceedings that you may not be prepared for. So as far as the consequences of having a protective order, I mean that’s something that’s public record.
It’s available at the courthouse. Dirty laundry is potentially going to be aired. Anybody doing a free background check could pull that up. We’re talking about employers or if you’re looking for housing that could affect you in all kinds of different ways.
Additionally, your second amendment rights with protect orders in effect, they’re gone. Federal law says you can’t have a firearm when a protective order is in effect. So it has lots of consequences to you.
Second because it has consequences and because it’s serious you’re going to want to know what you’re doing and if you are not an attorney can be very difficult to do that. It can be very difficult to speak for yourself for a lot of different reasons.
One, when you’re defending yourself in court, all of your statements seem self-serving, although you will need to testify because you’re the one that has personal knowledge of it arguments need to 
be done by the attorney because it’s more effective coming from somebody who’s not personally involved and because what you say in argument cannot be twisted and used against you the same way as if you said it.
Also not understanding the proceedings. Are you prepared on how to cross examine a witness to know what is relevant, to know what the rules of evidence are and what’s admissible and not admissible or how to authenticate and get in written documents, how to get around hearsay objections?
There’s a lot that you’re not going to know. Unfortunately, in handling protective order representation, I do get calls from people after the fact who had a protective order hearing and it did not go well and they want representation. And there’s two problems. One, when you appeal a protective order, you’re stuck with the record that you have.
And there’s usually two mistakes that are made. One, they don’t know how to cross examine, call witnesses, get evidence in. So it’s not even in the record to work with too. Two, they didn’t know that you need to pay for a court reporter and have a court reporter there.
So there literally is no record and makes it extremely difficult to appeal. So you don’t want to make those mistakes. You got to know protective orders are a big deal and you’re going to want to handle it competently.
And for that you’re going to want to have an attorney, but don’t take this general information at my word. Let’s talk specifically about your circumstances. If you’re involved in this. Talk to an attorney.
They can know the specific circumstances you’re dealing with because the rules and the things may be a little bit different to your particular scenario. If that’s something you’re dealing with, give me a call. I’ll talk to you about it
