David Heleniak, Esq. has been a practicing civil litigation attorney since 1999. In 2004, he received his MA in Theological and Religious Studies from Drew University. He is a writer, focusing on constitutional law, judicial behavior, and the religious aspects of the State, and an occasional constitutional litigator. He gained recognition on the issue of domestic violence restraining orders with his 2005 law review article “The New Star Chamber: The New Jersey Family Court and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act.”
More recently, in the case Crespo vs. Crespo, he won a landmark decision in which the Honorable Francis Schultz of Hudson County ruled that the criteria for a final restraining order must be “clear and convincing evidence” rather than a “preponderance of the evidence.” (Unfortunately, the decision was overturned on appeal.)
Since then, his article “Erring of the Side of Hidden Harm: The Granting of Domestic Violence Restraining Orders” was published by the peer-reviewed journal Partner Abuse. He currently serves as the vice president of RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting), a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of the nation’s approach to solving domestic violence.
We welcome Mr. Heleniak’s contributions to UncheckedPower
