The most dangerous time for an abused wife or girlfriend is when she's trying to leave her abuser, say domestic violence groups.
Now victims' advocates say an attorney's effort to drum up business makes it even more dangerous for those women and the deputies protecting them.
Port Richey attorney Jessica Miller, already under investigation by the Florida Bar, has been seeking business from those named in requests for domestic violence injunctions, often abusive husbands and boyfriends.
Miller's advertisement is not illegal. But it's the timing of her ad that state Sen. Mike Fasano, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Florida Bar fear most.
That's because an abuser could read the lawyer's letter before a deputy can serve the protective order. That could inadvertently tip off abusers that their wives, their girlfriends, their children, are about to leave.
"It definitely puts a victim in a very dangerous situation," said coalition spokeswoman Dia Kuykendall, "because there could be instances where they're still living with the abuser but haven't left and have filed the paperwork."
Lynn Needs, executive director of the Salvation Army's Domestic Violence Program, put it this way:
"It's like pouring gas onto a fire."
Miller has a First Amendment right to commercial speech, to advertise her business. The public has a right to know about those legal services. And those served with injunctions have the right to fight them.
That's who Miller's advertisement is aimed at. But then it also says: "you have been, or are about to be, served with an injunction."
That could make a volatile situation even more so, Needs said.
"There's constant safety planning going on for someone to leave an abusive relationship," she said. "Notification before that could destroy that person's plan and it could make them even more vulnerable."
Filing the paperwork, asking a judge for a protective order, escalates the situation even more, Kuykendall said.
That's why deputies serve protective orders, to explain what they are and the consequences of failing to obey them.
It's safer for everyone involved, sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said, if the abuser is the last to know - and if a deputy is the first to tell them. If they're tipped off to the injunction, Doll said, they can avoid being served - and if they don't get the judge's order, they don't have to obey it.
"The process is there for a certain reason," Doll said. "This attempt by this lawyer could be throwing a monkey wrench into the whole procedure.
"It's already a delicate, emotionally tense time serving these injunctions."
Miller did not return a call for comment from the Times on Monday. But her office did say that the ad was shown to and approved by the Florida Bar.
The Bar said the ad does appear to meet its rules.
Miller is already in trouble with the Bar for allegations of misconduct from past clients. The Bar also wants to suspend her law license for failing to obey subpoenas.
She has denied the allegations.
So what can be done?
"We're going to be informing our deputies and our victim's advocates about this possible pre-emptive strike by this lawyer," Doll said.
The best solution, the Sheriff's Office, the Bar and Fasano all said, might be legislative.
Fasano said he would sponsor a law to exempt domestic violence injunctions from public records law until they're served.
Then no one could obtain the names and addresses to send the fliers out in the first place.
