Atlantic County
Sexual Abuse Lawyer in Atlantic City, New Jersey
If you were sexually abused or assaulted in Atlantic City, you can bring a civil claim against the person responsible and against the business or institution whose failures allowed it. Atlantic County's seat is Mays Landing, but civil claims are heard at the Civil Courts Building on Bacharach Boulevard in Atlantic City itself.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
Atlantic City, practically
Atlantic County’s seat is Mays Landing, and criminal matters are heard there at the Criminal Courts Complex on Unami Boulevard. Civil claims, which is what an abuse claim is, are heard at the Atlantic County Civil Courts Building, 1201 Bacharach Boulevard, Atlantic City, NJ 08401.
That split catches people out, because they look up the county seat and conclude their case would be an hour inland. For a civil abuse claim it would not. Atlantic shares a vicinage with Cape May.
The office is in Mount Laurel and cases are taken across the state. A first conversation is a phone call.
Local services
Free, confidential, independent of this office, and available whether or not you ever speak to a lawyer.
- AVANZAR Atlantic County Women’s Center, the state-designated service, 24-hour line 609-646-6767.
- RAINN, the national hotline, 1-800-656-4673, free and confidential at any hour.
- Atlantic City Police Department covers the city; the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office runs victim witness support.
What is different about Atlantic City
Atlantic City’s economy is casinos, hotels and hospitality, and that shapes the claims that come from here more than any other local factor.
Two areas of law are disproportionately relevant. The first is sex trafficking: a federal statute allows survivors to sue businesses that knowingly benefited from participation in a trafficking venture, and hotels and motels are the most frequent defendants, because the signs are usually visible to staff. The second is assault by employees of hospitality businesses, including spa and massage staff at resort properties, where the operator’s hiring and supervision decisions are the substance of a claim.
In both, the practical point is the same: the individual is rarely the defendant who matters. The property owner, the operator and frequently a national brand are the entities with the records, the policies and the insurance.
If you were visiting rather than living here
A large share of what happens in Atlantic City happens to people who were here for a weekend, a conference or a season of work, and who left immediately afterward.
That does not affect whether you have a claim. Where the abuse happened governs, not where you live, and these claims are regularly brought from other states and other countries. Nor does leaving without reporting to the Atlantic City police prevent anything: a civil claim does not require a police report at any stage.
Who can be held responsible
The person who committed the abuse, and usually the organization that put them in a position to do it: how it hired, how it supervised, what it did when a concern was raised, and whether it reported what New Jersey law required. Each of those is a separate route to a claim, and each is proved with different documents.
How institutions are held liable for sexual abuse in New Jersey
How long do you have to file in New Jersey?
If you were abused as a child, you can generally bring a civil claim in New Jersey until your 55th birthday, or within seven years of realizing that your injuries are connected to the abuse, whichever of those is later.
If you were an adult when the abuse happened, the period is generally seven years from the incident, or seven years from the point at which you connected the harm to it.
New Jersey also ran a two-year lookback window, from December 1, 2019 to November 30, 2021, during which claims that had already expired could be brought regardless of age. That window has closed. It is worth being clear about, because people hear that it closed and conclude they have missed everything, when the ordinary deadlines above are separate and often still leave years.
Which of these applies to you, and when your seven years started, depends on facts specific to you. A short confidential call will tell you where you actually stand.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
Questions people ask
Where would an Atlantic City civil claim be heard?
At the Atlantic County Civil Courts Building, 1201 Bacharach Boulevard, in Atlantic City. The county seat is Mays Landing and criminal matters are heard there, but a civil abuse claim is heard in the city.
Is there a rape crisis service in Atlantic County?
Yes. The Atlantic County Women's Center operates the state-designated 24-hour line on 609-646-6767, free and confidential.
Can a hotel or casino be responsible for what happened to me?
In many circumstances, yes. A federal trafficking statute allows claims against businesses that knowingly benefited from a venture they knew or should have known was trafficking, and ordinary negligence claims apply where an employee assaulted a guest.
It happened while I was visiting on holiday.
That does not prevent a claim. Where the abuse happened is what matters, and these claims are regularly brought by people who live in other states.
I was working in hospitality at the time.
Claims by employees against employers raise their own questions and are worth asking about. Being staff rather than a guest does not remove a claim.
The property has changed brand or ownership since.
Not the end of it. Insurance in force at the time may respond, successor owners may carry liability, and national brands frequently retain records and set the standards that were breached.