Checklist · Family Violence & Protection Orders
Client safety screening and safety planning checklist for family violence matters
Lawyer's checklist for screening family violence risk at intake and through the matter, making a safe communication and document plan, and referring to specialist services. It supports, and does not replace, specialist risk assessment.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales, Victoria
- AI use
- Red Keep AI out of the decisive steps. A lawyer does the work.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 17 October 2026 against the 6 authorities it cites, for Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use at first contact in every family law, protection order, child protection or elder law matter where family violence may be present, and again at known risk points (separation, service, hearings, release from custody). It is not a clinical risk assessment tool.
How AI may be used
Lawyer-led. Safety screening and planning are human tasks. AI risk-scoring tools must not replace professional or specialist risk assessment, and location, contact and safety-plan details must never go into general-purpose AI tools.
AI may
- Produce a blank screening form or referral list template from the firm's approved checklist
- Diary review dates for the safety plan in the practice management system
AI must not
- Must not score, rank or predict the client's risk
- Must not receive the client's address, routines, safety plan, or the perpetrator's details
- Must not draft referral content that includes identifying details in an unapproved tool
The lawyer checks
- Screening completed and recorded, and urgent risk escalated the same day
- Safe contact plan agreed and recorded on the file in a restricted field
- Every outgoing document checked for location details before it leaves the firm
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Family Violence & Protection Orders
- Private ADVO application and applicant's written statement (NSW Local Court): completion guide
- Family violence intervention order application (Victoria, FVIO1 or online): completion guide
- Notice of Child Abuse, Family Violence or Risk (Federal Circuit and Family Court): completion guide
- Technology-facilitated abuse and deepfake evidence preservation checklist
- Firm protocol: using AI in family violence matters (address protection and client safety)
- Letter of advice to a defendant on an ADVO: options, consenting without admissions and consequences (NSW)
All precedents for Family Violence & Protection Orders · Tasks and AI use in this area