Austin Family Law Attorney and Mediator

Mediation is a guided, confidential conversation where you and the other party shape the outcome together, often in a single session. Litigation asks a judge to decide for you. We offer both, and we will always tell you honestly which path fits your family.

Our mediation rates are flat and published: $550 per party for a four hour session and $1,100 per party for eight hours. No hidden fees and no hourly surprises. The one exception is agreed in advance: if a session runs past its booked time, additional time is billed as set out in the mediation agreement both parties sign.

No. Mediations run virtually over Zoom, so you can join from anywhere in Texas.

In most cases Texas will not grant a divorce before the 60th day after the petition is filed. That waiting period does not apply where your spouse has been finally convicted of, or received deferred adjudication for, a family violence offence against you or a member of your household, or where you hold an active protective order or a magistrate’s order for emergency protection against them. An agreed, uncontested divorce is usually completed shortly after that window closes. Contested cases take longer, and you will get a realistic timeline at your consultation.

Texas uses guideline percentages of the paying parent’s monthly net resources: 20 percent for one child, 25 for two, 30 for three, 35 for four, 40 for five, and not less than 40 percent for six or more. Where the paying parent’s monthly net resources are under $1,000 a month, a lower schedule applies instead: 15 percent for one child, 20 for two, 25 for three, 30 for four and 35 for five. Those percentages apply up to a cap on net resources that is adjusted periodically. A court can order an amount outside the guidelines where the circumstances justify it.

Yes. A Texas court can modify an order where there has been a material and substantial change in circumstances. For support there is often a second route: if three years have passed and the ordered amount differs from the guideline amount by 20 percent or $100, that alone can support a modification. That route is not open to everyone. Where the amount in your order was agreed between you and differs from what the guidelines would have produced, a court can modify it only on a material and substantial change in circumstances, so check which kind of order you have before counting on the three-year review.

Unpaid support becomes arrears, and it does not simply disappear. Enforcement can reach wages, tax refunds, licences and, in serious cases, contempt. There are deadlines, though. A motion asking the court to hold the other parent in contempt has to be filed within two years of the date the child becomes an adult or the support obligation ends, and a motion to confirm the arrears and take a money judgment within ten years of those same dates. That is why the sooner it is addressed, the more options stay open.

Not strictly, but one attorney cannot represent both spouses, and a decree that is drafted loosely tends to resurface years later. Where you genuinely agree, the work is drafting and filing it correctly the first time.

It means your goals lead the strategy. You are not handed a plan; we design it with you, explain every step, and keep you in the driver’s seat from the first meeting to the final signature.