Texas divorce runs on clocks: six months in the state, ninety days in the county, sixty days between petition and decree. What fills the time between them (temporary orders, the estate, the children) is the actual case.
Texas grants no-fault divorce on the ground of insupportability under Texas Family Code § 6.001: neither spouse has to prove wrongdoing. One spouse must have lived in Texas for six months and in the filing county for 90 days under § 6.301, and § 6.702 bars the court from granting the divorce before the 60th day after filing, with narrow family-violence exceptions.
Insupportability: the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities, with no reasonable expectation of reconciliation. No one has to prove fault, and most Texas divorces are granted on this ground alone.
Cruelty, adultery, conviction of a felony, abandonment, living apart for three years, and confinement in a mental hospital remain statutory grounds. Fault is harder to prove, and proving it can matter when the court divides the estate.
A divorce suit can be maintained in Texas only if one spouse has been a Texas domiciliary for the preceding six months and a resident of the filing county for the preceding 90 days. Either spouse's residency satisfies the rule.
The court may not grant a divorce before the 60th day after the petition is filed. The waiting period yields only in defined family-violence circumstances (a conviction or deferred adjudication against the petitioner, or an active protective order).
On filing, the court can issue a temporary restraining order that freezes the financial status quo (accounts, property, records, insurance) until the first hearing. Many North Texas counties have standing orders that do similar work automatically.
Texas divides the estate of the parties in the manner the court deems just and right (an equitable standard, not an automatic 50/50 split). Characterization, valuation, and division are where most contested divorces are actually fought.
Both spouses agree on every term (property, debts, and any children's issues), and the case moves on paperwork and a short prove-up rather than contested hearings. The 60-day waiting period still applies.
We handle this when the agreement is real and needs to be drafted so it holds. A decree is permanent, even when the divorce is friendly.
The spouses disagree on at least one term that matters: the house, the accounts, the schedule. Contested cases run through temporary orders, discovery, and negotiation. And a small share reach trial.
We handle this when there is a real dispute and the outcome turns on the record each side builds.
Conservatorship, possession, and support are decided inside the divorce: the parent-child case runs on the same docket as the property case. It is the deepest version of a divorce, and the one where temporary orders matter most.
We handle this when children are involved, much of our divorce work. See child custody.
A business, a professional practice, executive compensation, real estate, or significant separate-property claims. The work is characterization, tracing, and valuation (done before the negotiation, not during it).
We handle this when the estate is complex enough that the division turns on valuation. See property division.
Family violence changes the sequence: a protective order can precede or accompany the filing, the 60-day waiting period can yield under § 6.702, and a family-violence finding reshapes the conservatorship analysis.
We handle this when safety comes first, and we file in that order. See protective orders.
A premarital or marital-property agreement redraws the property map before the case starts. The first question is enforceability; the second is what the agreement actually covers, often less than either spouse assumes.
We handle this when an agreement exists and the divorce has to be run through it. See prenuptial agreements.
The case opens with an original petition for divorce, or, if you were served, an answer that protects your deadlines. Residency under § 6.301 is confirmed before filing, and the 60-day clock under § 6.702 starts the day the petition is filed.
A temporary restraining order under § 6.501 or a county standing order holds the finances in place. A temporary-orders hearing then sets the rules for the months ahead: who lives where, who pays what, and (with children) an interim schedule.
Each side maps the estate: sworn inventories, account statements, appraisals, business records. With children, this stage also builds the conservatorship record. Most of a divorce's leverage is created here, quietly.
Most divorces settle. Many North Texas courts order mediation before a final contested hearing (whether and when varies by county), and a mediated settlement agreement that meets § 6.602's requirements is binding once signed.
An agreed case ends with a short prove-up and an agreed decree. A contested case ends with trial and a ruling. Either way, the decree is the document that runs your next decade: it is drafted, not just granted.
Strip away the procedure and a Texas divorce answers three questions: whether the marriage ends, how the estate divides, and (when there are children) who decides, who pays, and when the children are with each parent. The first question is the only easy one. Texas will grant the divorce. The case is everything after that.
Texas will grant the divorce. The case is everything after that.
Before any of it, though, come the clocks. A divorce cannot be filed in Texas unless one spouse has lived in the state for six months and in the filing county for ninety days. Once filed, it cannot be granted for sixty days. Those three numbers frame every timeline conversation worth having, and every timeline promise worth doubting.
Texas is a no-fault state. Under Texas Family Code § 6.001, the court may grant a divorce without regard to fault if the marriage has become insupportable (the statute’s word) because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marriage and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation. Nobody has to prove wrongdoing. Nobody has to consent: the ground is available on the petition of either party, which is why a spouse who “won’t agree to the divorce” can slow the case but cannot stop it.
Most Texas divorces are granted on insupportability alone. But the fault grounds did not disappear when no-fault arrived, and they still earn their place in some petitions: cruelty (§ 6.002), adultery (§ 6.003), conviction of a felony with at least a year’s imprisonment (§ 6.004), abandonment for at least a year (§ 6.005), living apart for at least three years (§ 6.006), and confinement in a mental hospital for at least three years (§ 6.007).
Why plead fault when you don’t have to? Because the division of the estate is just and right, not automatic, and proven fault is one of the things a court can weigh when it tilts the division. Whether fault is worth the cost of proving it is a strategy question, decided estate by estate, not a default.
If you moved away and your spouse stayed, the case can be filed where your spouse qualifies.
Texas Family Code § 6.301 sets the rule: a divorce suit may be maintained only if, at filing, either the petitioner or the respondent has been a Texas domiciliary for the preceding six months and a resident of the filing county for the preceding ninety days. Either spouse’s residency will do. If you moved away and your spouse stayed, the case can be filed where your spouse qualifies.
The quieter point is county selection. When spouses qualify in different counties, the petitioner chooses among the proper ones, and the choice is not cosmetic: standing orders, docket rhythms, and local practice vary by county, and they shape how fast the case moves and what is restrained on day one. It is one of the first questions we resolve, before anything is filed.
Under Texas Family Code § 6.702, the court may not grant a divorce before the sixtieth day after the petition is filed. Treat that number for what it is: a floor, not an estimate. A genuinely agreed case with a clean decree can finish near it. A contested case (an estate to value, a schedule to fight over, discovery to complete) commonly runs several months to more than a year. Anyone who quotes you a completion date at the first meeting is guessing out loud.
The waiting period yields in narrow circumstances the statute spells out: where the respondent has been finally convicted of, or received deferred adjudication for, a family-violence offense against the petitioner or the petitioner’s household, or where the petitioner holds an active protective order based on family violence committed during the marriage. If your situation involves safety, the sequencing changes: protective orders covers that path.
Divorces are won and lost less often at trial than in the opening weeks, when the rules for the pendency get set.
The first instrument is restraint. Under Texas Family Code § 6.501, the court can issue a temporary restraining order the day the case is filed (without the other spouse present), freezing the financial status quo: no draining accounts, no transferring property, no canceling insurance, no destroying records. Under TRCP 680 an ex parte order of that kind holds for up to fourteen days, until both sides can be heard. Many North Texas counties have standing orders that impose similar restraints automatically on every divorce filed there; whether one applies to you depends on where the case sits, and it changes what needs to be requested versus what is already in force.
The decree ends the marriage. The temporary orders decide how you live until it does.
The second instrument is the temporary-orders hearing: who lives in the house, who pays which bills, temporary support if warranted, and (with children) an interim schedule and decision rights. Temporary orders are formally provisional. Functionally, they set the household’s operating reality for the life of the case, and the reality they set has a way of informing the final one. We prepare that hearing accordingly.
Texas is a community property state, and the presumption does most of the early work: property acquired by either spouse during the marriage is presumed community, whatever name is on the title or the account. Separate property (what you owned before the marriage, plus gifts and inheritances received during it) stays with its owner, but it does not prove itself. It has to be traced, with records, back to its separate origin, and commingled accounts make that tracing the most document-heavy work in the case.
That is an equitable standard, not an equation.
The community estate is then divided under Texas Family Code § 7.001: in the manner the court deems just and right, having due regard for the rights of each party and any children of the marriage. That is an equitable standard, not an equation. Courts routinely divide unequally when the circumstances support it: disparities in earning capacity, the size of each spouse’s separate estate, fault where it has been proven. A spouse who walks in assuming “half of everything, automatically” has misread the statute in both directions.
When the estate includes a business, a professional practice, executive compensation, or real estate across entities, the division becomes a valuation case before it is a negotiation. Characterization, tracing, and valuation are their own discipline, and they have their own hub: property division walks through it. If a premarital or marital-property agreement exists, it redraws this map before the case starts: prenuptial agreements covers enforceability and scope.
One vocabulary correction Texas requires: the word is not “alimony.”
One vocabulary correction Texas requires: the word is not “alimony.” Texas has spousal maintenance, a statutory remedy with deliberately narrow eligibility, and contractual support that parties can negotiate as part of a settlement. The difference is not academic (it affects enforceability and taxes), and spousal support takes it from here.
When children are involved, the divorce carries a second case inside it. The suit affecting the parent-child relationship runs on the same docket, and it decides conservatorship (decision-making authority) and possession and access (the schedule) under the best-interest standard of Texas Family Code § 153.002, together with child support. Texas never uses the word “custody” in its orders; the vocabulary, the presumptions, and the standard schedules are mapped in full at child custody, and the support calculation at child support.
What belongs on this page is how the two cases interact, because they do, constantly. The temporary schedule set in week three shapes the stability argument at final orders. The possession schedule affects the support calculation. The support picture affects which property trade-offs each side will accept, and the house, the largest community asset, is often also the answer to “where do the children live.” Running the property case and the children’s case as separate negotiations is one of the quieter mistakes self-represented spouses make; they are one settlement, with moving parts.
One asymmetry worth knowing before you sign anything: the children’s provisions of a decree can be revisited later through modification when circumstances materially change. The property division cannot. It is final when the decree is signed, which is why the estate work gets done thoroughly the first time: there is no second pass.
Running the property case and the children’s case as separate negotiations is one of the quieter mistakes self-represented spouses make; they are one settlement, with moving parts.
Uncontested has a precise meaning, and it is stricter than “we’re on decent terms.” It means both spouses agree on every term the decree must contain (property, debts, and all children’s issues) before the drafting starts. When that is true, the case moves on paperwork: petition, waiting period, decree, and a short prove-up hearing (some counties accept an affidavit instead; it varies by county). The sixty-day floor still applies, and the drafting still deserves care, because an agreed decree is enforced with exactly the same force as a litigated one. Uncontested work here is mostly the discipline of getting the language right: the schedule that anticipates the fifth-weekend problem, the account division that names the account.
That finality is mediation’s power and its risk: you do not leave the table with a draft, you leave with an agreement.
Contested means at least one term is genuinely disputed, and the case takes the longer road: temporary orders, discovery, negotiation. Even then, trial is the exception. Most contested divorces settle, and many settle at mediation (a structured negotiation with a neutral, which many North Texas courts order before a final hearing; whether and when varies by county). Under Texas Family Code § 6.602, a mediated settlement agreement that meets the statute’s formality requirements is binding once signed, before any judge reviews it. That finality is mediation’s power and its risk: you do not leave the table with a draft, you leave with an agreement. How we prepare for that table is covered at mediation.
A case can also change categories midstream. Plenty of divorces file contested and settle into agreement; a few file “agreed” and discover, at the inventory stage, that they were not. The label matters less than the preparation, which is the same either way: know the estate, know the schedule you need, know your walk-away.
Every divorce here starts the same way: a free, fifteen-minute Case Alignment Review with our intake team. It is a fit-and-jurisdiction conversation, not legal advice and not a sales call: your county, your timeline, whether children or a business are involved, and whether we are the right firm for the shape of your case. If we are not, we will say so and point you somewhere better suited.
When the fit is right, the next step is the $275 Strategy Consultation: a working session where an attorney evaluates your facts, settles the grounds and county questions with you, and walks you through your rights and options, under attorney-client privilege. If you want to think about the money side before you call, the cost estimator sketches how the level of contest drives cost, and how retainers work explains the fee structure in plain terms.
From there the case follows the sequence above: petition, restraints, temporary orders, discovery, negotiation or mediation, and trial only if the case has not resolved before it. The county sets the rhythm: each of the twelve counties we file in runs its own standing orders and docket practice, and part of our job is knowing which procedural path moves fastest where your case actually sits. What the process looks like week to week, start to finish, is mapped on what to expect.
A New York-trained litigator running a Texas family-law practice. Hundreds of North Texas family-law matters handled.
Runs intake for the firm. Before your alignment review, your timeline, your county, and the existing order are already in the file, so the fifteen minutes go to your question.
We handle divorce matters across the 12 North Texas counties. We know each docket.
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We file in Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, Hunt, Grayson, Fannin, Wise, and Parker counties. We know each docket.
Every family-law case sits in front of a court whose standing orders, hearing rhythms, and docket preferences vary by county. Which court hears a temporary-orders motion the same week. Which one orders mediation before any contested hearing. That is the local part of practice that does not show up in the statute book.
We don't take every case.
Family law is a long relationship.
The wrong fit costs everyone.
Most cases here start with a fifteen-minute alignment review. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so on the call.
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