Burlington County
Sexual Abuse Lawyer for Burlington County, New Jersey
Sexual abuse claims from anywhere in Burlington County are handled from an office in Mount Laurel, inside the county. Burlington is New Jersey's largest county by land area, its seat is Mount Holly, and a civil claim can be brought against the individual responsible and against the organization whose own failures allowed the abuse to happen.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
Burlington County, practically
Burlington is the largest county in New Jersey by land area, running from the Philadelphia suburbs to the Pine Barrens and out toward the shore. That size is the one genuinely local fact worth knowing: services that are ten minutes from Mount Laurel may be an hour from the eastern side of the county, which matters when you are deciding who to call first.
The county seat is Mount Holly, where county matters are administered. The office for this practice is at 2000 Academy Dr. in Mount Laurel, inside the county, about ten miles from Mount Holly.
Towns this office regularly hears from include Mount Laurel, Moorestown, Marlton and Evesham, Medford, Mount Holly, Willingboro, Maple Shade and Burlington Township.
County services
Free, confidential, and independent of this office.
- Providence House, the Willingboro Shelter program, is the state-designated sexual violence service for the county, 609-871-7551, 24 hours.
- Contact of Burlington County, Mount Holly, sexual assault services 24/7 on (856) 600-4800. Phone support, counseling, and accompaniment to hospital, police and court.
- Regional sexual assault line, listed among Burlington County’s resources by the New Jersey State Police, (856) 964-7378 or toll free (866) 295-7378.
- Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, Victim Witness Unit, P.O. Box 6000, Mount Holly, NJ 08060, (609) 265-5035, which supports people through the criminal process.
What a civil claim adds
People who have already been through the Prosecutor’s Office sometimes assume that was the system, and that once a criminal matter ended there was nothing further. The two are separate.
A criminal case is brought by the state and decides whether someone is punished. You are a witness in it. A civil claim is brought by you, seeks compensation rather than a conviction, is decided to a lower standard of proof, and can proceed where nobody was ever charged or where a prosecution failed. Neither one prevents the other.
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
Which towns does this cover?
Burlington County includes Mount Laurel, Moorestown, Marlton and Evesham, Medford, Mount Holly, Willingboro, Maple Shade and Burlington Township, among many others. It is the largest county in New Jersey by land area, so distances within it vary a great deal.
Where is the county seat?
Mount Holly, where county matters are administered and where both the Prosecutor's Office and Contact of Burlington County are based. Mount Laurel is about ten miles away.
What crisis services cover Burlington County?
Providence House, the Willingboro Shelter program, is the state-designated service, on 609-871-7551, 24 hours. Contact of Burlington County provides sexual assault services 24/7 on (856) 600-4800 from Mount Holly, including accompaniment to hospital, police and court. A regional sexual assault line listed among Burlington County's resources by the New Jersey State Police runs on (856) 964-7378 and toll free on (866) 295-7378.
What is the Victim Witness Unit and do I need it?
It is part of the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, at P.O. Box 6000, Mount Holly, NJ 08060, on (609) 265-5035, and it supports people through the criminal process. It is separate from a civil claim. You can use both, either, or neither.
The county is large. Does distance matter to a claim?
Not to the claim itself. A first conversation is a phone call, and the county's size mainly affects which local services are realistically within reach of you, which is why the numbers above are worth having.
Does a claim have to involve the police?
No. A civil claim does not require a police report, a criminal charge or a conviction, and many of the claims brought here involve none of them.