Divorce Lawyer in Austin, Texas

Calm strategy, courtroom strength

Some cases cannot be settled across a table. An unwilling spouse, hidden assets, a safety concern, a dispute about the children that mediation could not close. When that is your reality, you deserve someone who has spent twenty years in Texas family courts.

We work mediation-first. Mediation and agreed decrees come before litigation here, because they are cheaper, faster and private. Court comes when it is genuinely the right instrument, and we will tell you honestly which one you are looking at.

You get a written strategy you can question, and you are told what the next step costs before it happens. If a settlement opening appears in the middle of a contested case, we say so, even when carrying on would pay us more. And when a case is headed before a jury, Victoria also handles jury selection itself, the same voir dire work other trial attorneys bring her in for.

The kinds of divorce we handle

Agreed and uncontested. You have settled every term and need the paperwork done properly. This is the calmest and cheapest route, and it has its own page.

Contested. One or more issues are genuinely in dispute. That means discovery, temporary orders, and a case built to be tried, whether or not it ever is.

High asset. A business, executive compensation, retirement accounts, property held before the marriage. The dispute here is usually valuation and tracing rather than blame.

Military. Service complicates residency, pensions and scheduling, and federal law sits on top of the Texas rules.

Common-law marriage. Where one of you says there was a marriage and the other says there was not, that question gets decided before anything is divided.

High conflict. Some spouses will not negotiate in good faith. The answer is preparation and documentation rather than matching the temperature.

LGBTQ families. Same-sex divorce raises questions about parentage and about relationships that began long before 2015, and those need answering properly.

How a Texas divorce actually runs

Residency first. A Texas court cannot hear your divorce unless one of you qualifies. That means six months as a Texas domiciliary, and 90 days as a resident of the filing county.

Filing. The petition goes to the district clerk. In both Travis and Williamson counties a standing order takes effect the moment it is filed. It restrains both of you from moving the children, hiding money or cancelling insurance. Williamson will reject the filing if the order is not attached to it.

Service or waiver. Your spouse is either served, or signs a sworn waiver after the petition is filed.

The 60 day floor. No Texas court can grant a divorce before the 60th day after filing. Only family violence creates an exception.

Temporary orders, if needed. Who lives where, who pays what, and the schedule for the children while the case runs.

Discovery, in contested cases. Documents, sworn inventories, sometimes valuations.

Mediation. Travis County courts usually expect a genuine attempt before a final hearing.

Final decree. Signed by agreement, or after a trial.

Do you need a reason to divorce?

No. Texas grants divorce without regard to fault where the marriage has become insupportable. That means discord which destroys the marriage and leaves no reasonable expectation of reconciliation. It is how most Texas divorces are pleaded.

Fault grounds still exist and still matter, because fault can affect how property is divided. Texas recognises cruelty, adultery, conviction of a felony (where the spouse was convicted, imprisoned for at least a year and not pardoned, and not where the conviction rested on your testimony), abandonment, living apart, and confinement in a mental hospital.

Four of those carry fixed periods. Abandonment needs the spouse to have left intending to abandon and stayed away at least a year. Living apart needs three years without cohabitation. Confinement in a mental hospital needs three years. And the felony ground needs at least a year actually served.

Pleading fault raises the cost and the temperature, so it is worth doing only where it changes the outcome. We will tell you which situation you are in.

How property is divided in Texas

Texas is a community property state, and the presumption is broad. Anything either of you possesses during the marriage or at its end is presumed to be community.

Claiming an asset is yours alone means proving it by clear and convincing evidence. That is a higher standard than the rest of a civil case uses. The proof is tracing: closing documents, statements and dates that follow the asset from before the marriage to now.

Community property is not split down the middle. The court divides the estate in a way it finds just and right, taking account of both of you and of any children. Earning capacity, fault and who has the children all move that line.

An employer retirement plan, a 401(k) or a pension, needs its own order separate from the decree, and the court keeps jurisdiction to make one and to fix one a plan administrator rejects. An IRA is different: it moves on the decree plus a transfer request to the custodian. Real property is different again. A decree that carries a full legal description and awards the property does pass title and can be recorded in the county real property records, though we normally prepare a special warranty deed as well because title companies and lenders expect to see one.

Children: conservatorship, support, and where mediation fits

Texas calls it conservatorship rather than custody. The starting point is a rebuttable presumption that appointing both parents as joint managing conservators serves the child. A finding of a history of family violence involving either parent removes that presumption. The law goes further where there is credible evidence of a history or pattern of past or present child neglect, or of physical or sexual abuse by one parent directed against the other parent, a spouse or a child: in that situation a court may not appoint joint managing conservators at all, and the law also presumes it is not in the child’s best interest to name that parent sole managing conservator or to give that parent the exclusive right to decide where the child lives.

Joint conservatorship is about decision making, not equal time. Where the child lives, and the schedule, are decided separately.

Child support runs on guideline percentages of the paying parent’s monthly net resources, applied up to a statutory cap. Orders for the child’s medical and dental support are required.

You can agree all of it. Where the court finds your agreed parenting plan is in the child’s best interest, it must follow the plan. Where it does not, it can ask you for a revised one. That is why most custody disputes settle in mediation rather than at trial.

What a divorce costs, and what drives the number

We quote after the first conversation, because the honest answer depends on which case you have. What is more useful is knowing what moves the number.

How much is genuinely in dispute. One open issue is a mediation. Nine is a trial.

The quality of the financial information. A couple with recent statements and a short asset list costs a fraction of a couple with a business and no records.

Whether temporary orders are needed. A contested hearing early in the case is its own piece of work.

Outside costs. The clerk’s filing fee, service, a mediator, and where the estate needs it, an appraiser or a forensic accountant. Those are billed by the people who do them.

Mediation is the one part of this practice with a flat published rate, and it is on this site rather than behind a phone call.

Can we stay out of court?

Usually, and it is worth trying. Travis County courts generally expect a real attempt at mediation before they will set a final hearing, so the question is when rather than whether.

Filing a case and settling calmly are not opposites. Sometimes a properly prepared filing is exactly what brings the other side to the table.

A mediated settlement agreement that meets the Texas requirements is binding once signed, which is unusual and is why mediation ends cases. On terms about the children there is a narrow exception, where family violence or an abuse history is involved and the judge also finds the agreement is not in the child’s best interest. Our mediation rates are published.

Where there is family violence, hidden assets, or a spouse acting in bad faith, mediation is not the right first step. We will say so plainly.