PROTECTION ORDERS
It's fashionable these days for wives' lawyers to start the divorce process
by sending their client to court pro se (without a lawyer) to get an Order of Protection (Domestic Violence), usually called a DVOP.
The judges and commissioners are very concerned to protect women who say they are in danger, so a temporary order of protection appears to be automatic, at least in King County.
This is the plan -- the husband is supposed to go to the DVOP return hearing
(for the permanent order of protection) without a lawyer and lose.
Then the divorce will be easy for the wife; the husband will probably get a lawyer, but it will be too late to dispute (in the divorce) the adjudication that the husband is a domestic violence bad guy (that was made in the OP hearing), so this will be a legal fact in the divorce.
Sometimes the idea is to simply cut Dad out of the kids' lives, and sometimes the idea is to extort an unfair financial settlement from Dad in exchange for letting him continue having a meaningful relationship with his kids, but either way, Dad's failure to get a lawyer for the OP hearing is fatal in the divorce.
Don't make this mistake!
If you have kids, and you get served with an Order of Protection from their mother, don't think this is something you can talk your way out of, or that it's
no big deal -- GET A LAWYER AS SOON AS YOU CAN.
If you've already lost the OP hearing, one option is to IMMEDIATELY move for revision -- this is a "do-over" hearing on the same paperwork, but this time in front of a real judge.
Joshua Foreman Attorney at Law