What Is Legal Abuse?

Key Takeaways:

1. Legal abuse is a form of post-separation control where abusers manipulate the court system to harass, intimidate, or financially drain survivors.
2. Common tactics include filing excessive or frivolous motions, delaying court proceedings and making false accusations—all intended to overwhelm and destabilize the survivor.
3. Survivors can protect themselves by documenting patterns, seeking protective orders and working with legal professionals familiar with domestic abuse dynamics.

Legal abuse, sometimes also referred to as litigation abuse or post-separation legal abuse, is a tactic abusers use to try and retain power and control over a survivor after separation. They do so by utilizing the legal system to harass, intimidate or threaten the survivor. It can be exhausting, financially draining and traumatizing for a survivor to have to continue to see their abusive partner or respond to the abuser’s court filings, all under the guise of being “legal.”

Abusers Will Buy the Right to Torture Survivors

Abusers are cunning and can learn that a survivor can’t ignore a subpoena, even if a survivor may ignore the abuser or file an order of protection prohibiting the abuser from contacting them. A subpoena is a written order by the court requiring an individual to appear at a specific time or place to participate in a legal proceeding. Failure to respond to a subpoena means the individual will be in contempt of court, resulting in a monetary fine or jail time, though a jail sentence is rare.   

Abusers know that with enough money and a good lawyer they can repeatedly force survivors back to court. Considering that almost every abuser also utilizes financial abuse during the relationship—meaning they controlled the money and likely restricted the survivor’s access to finances—they often outspend the survivor on legal counsel. This gives them more power, and thus, more control. Survivors with children are often left waiting for child support while juggling the incoming court appointments, which can quickly bankrupt them. Many survivors have spoken about going into massive amounts of debt in legal fees in order to keep the abuser away from them and their children. 

Types of Legal Abuse

Repeated summons to return to court can come in many forms from an abusive partner (or their lawyer). It may look like:

• Filing repeated motions or petitions
• Making excessive discovery demands
• Requesting adjournments every time you do show up to court, which means the court date is rescheduled under the basis of needing more time to gather evidence or review documents
• Appealing the judge’s orders, often without a legal reason to do so, such as appealing an order of protection by the survivor each time it needs to be renewed, or appealing a custody arrangement that’s already been agreed upon
• Serving inappropriate demands, such as multiple motions, lawsuits or requests for hearings on the same issues that have already been addressed
• Unwarranted legal claims, such as saying the survivor is suddenly an unfit parent because they were a minute late in picking a child up or making up outright lies about the survivor, such as claiming they’re addicted to drugs or are abusing alcohol
• Overly complex legal demands made simply to confuse a survivor 
• Spousal support claims when the abuser knows full-well that the survivor has no financial means with which to pay them

All of these types of motions and filings are meant to overwhelm and exhaust the survivor, who often doesn’t have a lot of recourse except to respond to each and every one. The legal system was set up in such a way that anyone can file a petition if they fill out the appropriate paperwork. While this is often a good thing, in cases of abusive ex-partners, it’s yet another weapon in their arsenal. 

Can Judges Stop Legal Abuse?

This answer all depends on the judge and jurisdiction. Each judge’s knowledge and experience level of domestic abuse tactics varies. Ideally, a judge would note that a so-called “high-conflict divorce” is an abuser trying to torture an ex-partner and would put a stop to it. But this isn’t a guarantee. When court officials label these contentious cases as “high-conflict divorces,” they’re suggesting that both parties are to blame for the continued motions and escalation. In reality, there is often only one party responsible for the ongoing conflict. 

Emmaline Campbell from the UCLA Law Journal recommends the following be suggested to judges in courtrooms where an abuser is wielding legal abuse tactics. (Hint: this might be a helpful list for survivors to share with their legal counsel): 

• Find the abuser in contempt upon the very first failure to pay child support or in some other way conform to the terms of a court order, thus averting the need for repeated court hearings.
• Become familiar with abuser profiles and patterns of domestic violence to detect these more easily when they appear in court.
• Watch vigilantly for signs of abuse throughout the court and mediation processes.
• Sanction abusers who file frivolous motions.
• Be wary of granting custody or visitation to abusers. Where such contact is granted, structure agreements to reduce the need for contact between the parties.

Protecting Yourself from Legal Abuse

Besides petitioning the judge for help, as the survivor, there are a few things you can do to help stop an abusive ex from taking you to court on an endless loop.

1. Check to see if your state has laws against litigation abuse or frivolous lawsuits. Several do, including Tennessee, Washington, Idaho and Vermont, while states like California, Hawaii, New York, Connecticut and Colorado have laws that cover coercive control, which includes legal abuse. Find out what laws exist in your state at WomensLaw.org. 
2. Document everything. You can show a pattern of litigation abuse to the judge, which may help sway them into taking action. If you know that this abuser has done this in the past to a different partner, it’s useful to include that as well. If the abuser has a history of being sanctioned by the court for filing frivolous or harassing cases against you or anyone else, make note of this. Also record if the abuser has filed cases against you in various jurisdictions simultaneously, or has filed cases that have already been settled in the past. Ask if you can present your list to the judge. 
3. File your own motion. Ask that the abuser be ordered to pay your legal fees every time the abuser loses the motion, petition or other case brought against you. This could be enough to discourage frivolous cases. 
4. File for an order of protection against legal harassment. Some jurisdictions allow you to include harassment through the legal system in your order of protection. 
5. Be extra cautious when shared children are involved. One way abusers torture survivors after separation or divorce is to try and get full custody of the children, simply as a way to hurt the protective parent. Be one step ahead of the abuser by knowing what strategies they might use to do this. Read “Surprising Reasons Protective Parents May Lose Custody.”

For advice on finding a lawyer who has experience in domestic violence, see, “How to Find a Domestic Violence Lawyer.”