If you came to this page seeking information on attorneys or legal representation, you can find legal aid and pro-bono assistance in your area by visiting the resource page for your state HERE. If you're seeking an attorney referral to file a law suit against an abuser or a third party involved in a crime against you, please visit LegalMatch. Here you can post the facts of your case anonymously and interested attorneys can respond to let you know if they would be willing to take your case. This saves you a TON of time and phone calls. When describing your case for potential attorneys, remember to include WHERE the crime occurred (county and state), WHEN (how long ago, preferably with month and year), and the AGE OF THE VICTIM at the time of the crime (this has bearing on tolling the statute of limitations in some cases). You should also very carefully read the information on our site about when victims sue.

If you want to ask general questions, you can visit any or all of the message boards to the left. This should NOT be done IN PLACE OF retaining an attorney, but you can often get good insight from folks with backgrounds in law enforcement, court procedures, advocacy issues, and experience with the types of questions often asked on sites such as this one.

We encourage the use and dissemination of any and all materials found here. Our feeling is that if using our material will help someone, then please USE it, share it, copy it - that's the point of this site. If you make extensive use of our materials, we hope you'll remember to give back - either by giving us credit when you use our material, or by making a donation, or heck, BOTH. Wherever copyright notice is given by authors and/or contributors to materials you may find here, (i.e. they have given us permission to reprint their stuff) you are expected to abide by their rights and/or contact them for your own permission to reprint their material.

AARDVARC.org, Inc. takes the issue of online privacy seriously. It is our policy not to collect email addresses of individuals contacting us for information. We compile statistics on our email traffic at the beginning of each month - at which time all emails from the previous month are deleted.

It is important for users of this site to understand that when emailing us for information, you will receive an email in response. For your own safety, it is important that you understand the ramifications of receiving an email from an organization such as ours, especially in the event that an unauthorized person should discover those emails. Additionally, you should be aware that when using email at your place of employment, your employer may have legal right to read and examine any and all communications made using their equipment and/or online accounts. While we regard all communication with us to be of a confidential nature, keep in mind that under certain circumstances, electronic communications stored in our system (OR YOURS, OR YOUR EMPLOYER'S!) can be subject to subpoena or other court orders.

AARDVARC.org, Inc. will not share or exchange information or emails with persons outside our organization. In the event that referral to outside persons or organizations is warranted, it is our policy to provide referral information to the requestor and allow them to contact the referral agency directly. In cases where we feel the need to confer with outside persons or organizations about a request received via email, we will contact those persons or organizations without forwarding the original email in order to protect the privacy and email address of the requestor since we would have no control over how securely it would be handled once it was received on the other end. We will then convey any appropriate response to the requestor.

Finally, be aware that email is NOT a secure form of communication. There is a long list of people who could have access to your email activity. Emails can be intercepted by hackers, printed, forwarded or inadvertently rerouted or read by others with access to your computer (partners, parents, children, employers, etc.).

The information on this webite is provided with the understanding that the authors are not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, counseling or psychotherapeutic services. Contact or correspondence with AARDVARC.org, Inc. does not constitute a treatment relationship. As such, information on this site should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a licensed professional. While we have made every attempt to ensure that the information contained in this site has been obtained from reliable sources, AARDVARC.org, Inc. is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information. All information in this site is provided "as is", with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will AARDVARC.org, Inc., or it's agents, employees or volunteers thereof be liable to you or anyone else for any decision made or action taken in reliance on the information in this site or for any consequential, special or similar damages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

Certain links in this Site connect to other Web Sites maintained by third parties over whom we have no control. AARDVARC.org, Inc. makes no representations as to the accuracy or any other aspect of information contained in other Web Sites. Links to outside resources are intended only to make the user aware of the availability of such resources and in no way constitutes an endorsement of any other site or its contents. Consumers should be aware that participating in any forum, chat, self-help or discussion group carries the risk of receiving inaccurate or even harmful information which could result in psychological injury.

As we have no way of confirming the identity of persons requesting information from our organization via email, we cannot determine if such persons are adults or minors. In some states, providing information or services to minors requires the consent of a parent. Users of this site are hereby notified that minors seeking information in states requiring so, must do so with parental approval.