Illinois Petition for Order of Protection Dropped

This case involved many unusual elements. The client/respondent had been defaulted and an Order of Protection had been entered against him. This should not have happened because the client was never served with notice of the petition.

He, on his own, filed a motion to vacate the order. At that point, the Petitioner, who was his ex-girlfriend, hired a private attorney to oppose the motion to vacate the order which the respondent had filed. At that point, he wisely hired the Law Office of Steven R. Hunter to fight for him.

Petitions for an Order of Protection fall into two classes. When the Petitioner files the petition herself, they are fairly straight forward. These types of cases usually only involve a review of the petition and a hearing in which a skillful attorney can often, through cross-examination, presentation of evidence, and a knowledge of the law, defeat the request for the Order of Protection.

However, when, as in this case, an opposing lawyer is involved, the amount of work increases dramatically. This is especially true if the opposing attorney is seeking discovery such as depositions and interrogatories. In this case the opposing attorney filed a motion to strike the defendant's motion to vacate the order because it failed to meet some of the technical requirements of the statute and the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Once our office was hired, we filed an amended motion to vacate, which was granted. When the opposing counsel tried to intimidate us by threatening depositions and interrogatories, we responded in kind.

The result was that when the Petitioner realized that she had a fight on her hands, she decided to drop the petition, and our client prevailed. (11 OP 74799).