Family Lawyers in Houston

Residency comes first. To file for divorce in Texas, one spouse generally needs to have lived in the state for at least six months and in the county where you are filing for at least ninety days.

There is a waiting period. Texas requires a waiting period of sixty days from the date of filing before a divorce can be finalized. Limited exceptions exist, including certain cases involving family violence. Most divorces take considerably longer than sixty days, but nothing can be finalized before then.

You do not need to prove fault. Texas allows no-fault divorce, commonly filed on the grounds that the marriage has become insupportable. Fault grounds such as adultery or cruelty still exist and can matter to how property is divided in some cases.

Texas is a community property state. Property acquired during the marriage is generally considered jointly owned and subject to division, while property owned before the marriage or received by gift or inheritance is generally separate. The dividing line is less obvious than it sounds once accounts have been mixed, a house has been paid down with joint income, or a business has grown during the marriage.

Texas does not use the word custody in its statutes. It uses conservatorship for decision-making rights and possession and access for the schedule.

Conservatorship covers who makes decisions about education, medical care, and similar matters. Texas courts commonly appoint both parents as joint managing conservators, which does not mean equal time. It means shared decision-making rights, with specific rights sometimes allocated to one parent.

Possession and access is the schedule itself, who has the child when. Texas has a standard possession order that many orders are built from, with expanded versions and customized schedules depending on distance, work schedules, and the child's age.

The standard courts apply is the best interest of the child. That is deliberately broad, and it is why outcomes vary so much between cases that sound similar on the surface.

Texas calculates child support using guidelines based primarily on the paying parent's net resources and the number of children being supported. The guideline is a starting point, and courts can vary from it in certain circumstances, including a child with significant medical needs or a parent whose income falls outside the usual range.

Support orders also typically address health insurance and uninsured medical expenses, which people often forget to account for when estimating what they will owe or receive.

Support can be modified later if circumstances change materially, but it is not automatic. It requires going back to court.

Modification. Changing an existing order for custody, possession, or support after a material change in circumstances.

Enforcement. Bringing an action when the other party is not following an existing order, whether that is missed support or denied possession.

Protective orders. Court orders restricting contact in situations involving family violence. These move faster than most family matters.

Adoption and termination. Includes stepparent adoption, which is one of the more common types.

Paternity. Establishing legal fatherhood, which affects both parental rights and support obligations.

Ask how much of their practice is family law. Family law has its own procedures and its own local practice norms. An attorney who does it occasionally is at a disadvantage against one who does it daily.

Ask whether they practice in your county regularly. Judges differ, and knowing how a particular court tends to handle a particular issue is a real advantage.

Ask how they bill, and what a retainer covers. Family law is more often hourly than flat fee, which makes the fee conversation more important, not less. Ask what the retainer covers, what happens when it runs out, and what a case like yours typically ends up costing start to finish.

Ask about their approach. Some attorneys push hard toward settlement, some litigate aggressively. Neither is wrong, but you want one whose approach matches your situation. In a case with children, scorched earth has costs that outlast the case.

Ask about mediation. Most Texas courts require mediation before trial in family cases. Ask how they use it.

Family law is more commonly billed hourly than criminal defense, though flat fees appear for straightforward matters such as an uncontested divorce with no children and no property to divide.

Where it is hourly, you typically pay a retainer upfront that the attorney bills against. When it is exhausted, you replenish it. The total depends almost entirely on how contested the case is, which means it depends significantly on the other party's behavior, something neither you nor your attorney fully controls.

That is the honest answer to why family law fees are hard to quote precisely. An uncontested case and a heavily contested custody fight are different orders of magnitude, and which one you have is not always clear at the start.

Ask for a realistic estimate of a case like yours, and ask what tends to drive costs up. A good family attorney will tell you plainly.

Law Book is a free app that helps you find licensed Houston-area family law attorneys.

You tell it what you are dealing with, where you are, and what you can pay. It shows you licensed attorneys who fit, along with their fees, so you know what an attorney charges before you ever pick up the phone. You choose who to contact, and you contact them directly.

Attorneys are shown in random order. No attorney can pay to appear first or higher. There is no paid placement on Law Book. We do not sell your information, and we are not paid a referral fee for any case.

Law Book is a filtered attorney advertising platform. It is not a law firm, not a referral service, and nothing here is legal advice.