As the name implies, “family law” in Texas involves issues surrounding the marital relationship, the estate and, often, the kids.  You should know that Texas is a community property state, meaning that more often than not, property and money acquired during the marriage will be divided up equally upon divorce.   In the event your case is taken to court, a judge will decide the division of property if there is no agreement about who gets exactly what items from the marital estate.  We concentrate our efforts on resolving family law disputes in several ways:

Mediation: Mediation is a process by which an impartial neutral person, usually a family law attorney, visits with one spouse and his or her lawyer, then the other spouse and his or her lawyer.  The process normally takes all day.  With the back and forth, and a true desire to resolve the controversy, mediation is often successful.

Collaborative Law: This dispute-resolution technique involves the spouses and their attorneys sitting down together during a number of brief (usually two-hour) sessions.  The object is to identify what each spouse wants and needs post-divorce with emphasis on the spouses reaching agreements acceptable to both of them and avoiding a judge decided their case.

Trial: when settlement efforts fail, we are prepared to resolve disputes by trial, whether to the court or by jury.  All our attorneys try divorce and child custody cases as necessary.

Appeals: At times, a trial court will reach a decision that is incorrect under the law or constitutes an abuse of discretion.  When such an event occurs, we will appeal a case. All of our attorneys have experience in the appellate field.

Not all family law matters are disputes.  Our practice also includes, for example, drafting prenuptial agreements, obtaining adoptions, processing Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDRO) and other “office” type legal services.