ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to explain the legal structure within which battered women, and their advisers, must operate. In the space available, it is impossible to deal fully with every aspect of the law's application to domestic violence problems. In many cases, the legal provisions are extremely complex and they cut across the traditional boundaries that lawyers are trained to accept as natural (such as 'family law', 'property law', 'housing law', etc.). It is hoped that the account which follows is sufficient for a non-lawyer who comes into contact with the legal process and who wishes to understand procedures and terminology. In addition, practising lawyers who were trained before many of these remedies were introduced might find it useful to see how the provisions fit together (or don't, as the case may be) into a loose framework.
