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Dallas Family Law
Dallas Family Law Attorney
Guiding Dallas families through divorce, custody, and support with clear advice, steady representation, and a plan you understand before you file.
Overview
Family Law Attorney Serving Dallas, Texas
Family law in Texas covers the legal relationships between spouses, parents, and children — and in Dallas County it runs through seven family district courts at the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building. Most matters fall into four tracks: dissolution (divorce, annulment, and the division of community property), children (conservatorship, possession and access, and child support), enforcement and modification (changing or enforcing an order already in place), and protection (protective orders where family violence is involved). Which track a case sits in determines the deadlines, the court’s standing orders, and what a first hearing looks like.
Texas Family Code §153.002 directs Dallas County family courts to decide custody and possession matters based on the child’s best interest, considered case by case.
Our Dallas family law team represents clients across Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Rockwall, and Kaufman Counties, bringing plain-language guidance to a process that can otherwise feel overwhelming.
Every Dallas County family case is assigned to one of seven family district courts — the 254th, 255th, 256th, 301st, 302nd, 303rd, or 330th — and each has its own standing procedures for hearings, exhibits, and mediation. Knowing which court a case landed in changes the practical advice on day one: some courts require mediation in every contested case, others waive it for short, non-complex trials.
The Texas Family Code changed substantially on September 1, 2025. The cap on monthly net resources used to calculate guideline child support rose from $9,200 to $11,700, the rules on who has standing to file a custody suit narrowed, and possession schedules shifted. Orders written before that date were not automatically updated. If your order predates September 2025, it is worth a review.
We are not going to promise an outcome. What we will do is tell you, in the first meeting, what the realistic range of outcomes looks like in your court, what it will cost, and how long it will take.
Key Facts
Texas and Dallas Family at a Glance
- Dallas County's seven family district courts — the 254th, 255th, 256th, 301st, 302nd, 303rd, and 330th — sit in the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building at 600 Commerce Street.
- Texas requires a 60-day waiting period after a divorce petition is filed before a final decree can be granted, except in family-violence cases.
- Child support is calculated using statutory guideline percentages — 20% of monthly net resources for one child, rising to 40% for five or more — based on the paying parent's net resources and number of children.
- Effective September 1, 2025, the cap on monthly net resources used for guideline child support rose from $9,200 to $11,700 — the first adjustment since 2019.
- To file for divorce in Dallas County, one spouse must have lived in Texas for the preceding six months and in Dallas County for the preceding 90 days.
- Dallas County's family judges have adopted a standing order on children, property, and conduct of the parties that takes effect when a case is filed — before any hearing is held.
- Property acquired during marriage is presumed community property, and a Texas court must divide it in the manner it deems just and right — which does not automatically mean 50/50.
- Texas law presumes that appointing both parents as joint managing conservators is in the child's best interest, unless that presumption is rebutted by evidence.
How It Works
How Our Family Law Process Works
Strategy Session
You meet with an attorney, not a form. We review your documents, identify which of the seven Dallas County courts is likely to hear the case, and give you a realistic picture of the outcomes, the cost, and the timeline before you commit to anything.
File & Serve
We prepare and file your petition in Dallas County and arrange proper service on the other party. Filing also triggers the Dallas County standing order on children, property, and conduct — which restricts both parties from the moment the case opens.
Temporary Orders
We request temporary orders for custody, support, or possession so your family has structure while the case is pending. Temporary orders often set the pattern a final order follows, so this hearing carries more weight than its name suggests.
Discovery & Disclosure
We exchange financial disclosures and, where the case warrants it, issue discovery: account records, business valuations, retirement statements, appraisals. Contested property cases are won or lost on what gets documented here.
Mediation
Most contested Dallas County cases go to mediation, and several family courts require it before trial. A mediated settlement agreement that meets the statutory requirements is binding — which makes mediation day the most consequential day in many cases.
Resolve or Try
Most Dallas family cases resolve through mediation or negotiation; if not, we prepare and try your case before the court. If it goes to trial, the preparation started at step 04 — not the week before.
What We Handle
Family Law Matters We Handle in Dallas
Divorce
Contested and uncontested divorce, including the 60-day waiting period and the narrow circumstances that shorten or extend it.
Custody & Conservatorship
Joint and sole managing conservatorship, possession schedules, geographic restrictions, and relocation disputes.
Child Support
Establishing guideline support, medical and dental support, and cases where net resources exceed the $11,700 statutory cap.
Property & Asset Division
Community versus separate property, business interests, retirement accounts, and the QDROs needed to divide them.
Spousal Maintenance
Eligibility, statutory caps, and duration limits under Family Code Chapter 8 — a narrower remedy in Texas than in most states.
Modifications
Changing custody, possession, or support after a material and substantial change in circumstances — including the September 2025 support-cap increase.
Enforcement
Motions to enforce support orders and possession schedules, including contempt where a party ignores a court order.
Protective Orders
Family-violence protective orders and how they interact with a pending divorce or custody case in the same court.
Handled on another page
Appealing a family court ruling
See Family Law Appeals
Step-parent and relative adoption
See Adoption
Guardianship of a minor or incapacitated adult
See Guardianship
Criminal charges from a family-violence allegation
See Criminal Law
Updating a will or beneficiaries after divorce
See Estate Planning
Your Legal Team
Attorneys Who Handle Family Law in Dallas
Bryan Joseph Fagan
Owner/Managing Attorney
Attorneys, Founder, Leadership
Family LawFamily Law Appeal
Bryan Fagan is the Owner and Managing Attorney of the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC — one of Texas’s most recognized family law firms, with offices across Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, The Woodlands, Kingwood, Humble, Richmond, and beyond. A certified member of the College of the State Bar of Texas and a member of the Houston Bar Association’s Family Law Sector, Bryan has spent his career building a firm that delivers high-end family law representation to Texas families across every major market in the state.
Deborah Coleman
Senior Trial Attorney
Attorneys, Leadership
Criminal LawFamily Law
29+ years of litigation experience across family law and criminal defense to Dallas County families who need a seasoned courtroom advocate. Licensed since 1995, Deborah has spent three decades in Dallas courtrooms — building the kind of experience that only comes from trying cases year after year.
Jessica Lesser
High-Asset Divorce Attorney
Attorneys
Family Law
Jessica Lesser leads complex, high-asset Dallas divorce cases at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. Board Certified in Family Law with 25+ years of litigation experience, she specializes in complex property division, business valuation, and trial-ready advocacy.
Diana Weitzel
Business-Related Family Law Attorney
Attorneys
Family Law
Diana Weitzel is a Dallas divorce attorney at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. With 17+ years of experience and a TCU Executive MBA, she provides strategic, business-minded representation for complex, high-asset family law cases.
Robert A. Thornton
Family Law Attorney
Attorneys
Family Law
Robert Thornton is a Dallas family law attorney at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, representing Dallas County clients in divorce, custody, and family legal matters with 20+ years of litigation experience and dedicated personal advocacy. Working within Bryan Fagan’s structured legal system, Robert brings senior litigation experience to Dallas families navigating some of the most consequential legal decisions of their lives.
Melvin Thathiah
Divorce Trial Attorney
Attorneys
Family Law
Melvin Thathiah is a Dallas divorce and family law trial attorney at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, bringing 20 years of litigation experience to contested divorce and custody cases in Dallas County. Licensed since 2005, Melvin focuses on the cases that go the distance — clients who need full courtroom representation, not just a settlement negotiator.
Megan Nordyke
Family Law Attorney
Attorneys
Family Law
Megan Nordyke provides compassionate, justice-focused family law representation from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan’s Dallas office, drawing on more than a decade of experience and ten years of legal aid public service to support individuals and families through complex and sensitive matters.
The Dallas office has 7 attorneys, backed by 170+ legal professionals firmwide across Texas — including the criminal defense and personal injury attorneys who handle the charge and claim sides of animal cases. Meet the Dallas team or meet the full legal team.
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Answers, Directly
Family Law FAQ
Do I have to live in Dallas County to file here?
To file for divorce in Dallas County, one spouse must have lived in Texas for the preceding six months and in Dallas County for the preceding 90 days.
Where a case is filed matters more than people expect. Different counties have different standing orders, different local rules on mediation and exhibits, and different docket speeds. If both spouses qualify to file in different counties, the one who files first generally sets the venue.
Cases involving children follow a separate set of jurisdiction rules based on where the child has lived, which can point to a different county than the divorce would.
Can I get spousal maintenance in Texas?
Sometimes, but Texas is one of the more restrictive states. Court-ordered spousal maintenance requires meeting specific statutory eligibility grounds, and both the monthly amount and the duration are capped by statute.
Eligibility generally turns on the length of the marriage combined with an inability to earn enough to meet minimum reasonable needs, or on a recent family-violence conviction or deferred adjudication. Disability — of the spouse or of a child in their care — can also qualify. Separately from court-ordered maintenance, spouses can agree to contractual alimony in a settlement, which is not bound by the same statutory limits. Whether that is a good idea depends on tax treatment and enforceability, and it is worth discussing before you agree to it.
How is property divided in a Texas divorce?
Texas is a community property state. Property acquired during the marriage is presumed community property and is divided in a manner the court deems just and right — which does not automatically mean an equal split.
Separate property — what you owned before marriage, plus gifts and inheritances received during it — is not divided, but the burden is on the spouse claiming it to prove it with clear and convincing evidence. That proof is a tracing exercise through account records, and it is the reason step 04 of our process matters. In deciding what is just and right, courts can consider factors such as earning capacity, fault in the breakup of the marriage, and which parent will have primary care of the children.
Do I have to go to mediation before trial in Dallas County?
Usually yes. Several Dallas County family district courts require mediation in contested cases before a trial setting, though some will waive it for short, non-complex matters.
Mediation is not a hearing. Both sides sit in separate rooms with a neutral mediator moving between them. Nothing said there is admissible if the case later goes to trial. What makes it consequential is the outcome: a mediated settlement agreement that meets the statutory requirements is binding, and a party generally cannot back out of it. Go prepared, with a clear number and a clear floor.
What is the Dallas County standing order, and when does it apply?
It is an order the Dallas County family judges have adopted that takes effect automatically when a family case is filed — before any hearing — restricting what both parties may do with children, property, and each other.
Its purpose is to hold the status quo while the court gets to the issues. In practice it typically restricts things like moving children out of the area, emptying accounts, cancelling insurance, hiding or destroying records, and harassing the other party. It binds both sides equally, and violating it can carry consequences. A copy is normally attached to the petition and served with it — read it the day you receive it, not the week of your first hearing.
How is child support calculated in Texas, and what is the current cap?
Texas applies guideline percentages — 20% of monthly net resources for one child, 25% for two, 30% for three — to a maximum of $11,700 in monthly net resources, a cap that rose from $9,200 on September 1, 2025.
“Net resources” is not take-home pay. It is gross income from nearly all sources, minus Social Security and Medicare taxes, federal income tax calculated for a single filer, union dues, and the cost of the child’s health and dental coverage. Because the percentages did not change but the cap rose by $2,500, the guideline maximum for one child moved from roughly $1,840 to roughly $2,340 per month. If a parent’s net resources exceed the cap, a court applies the percentages to the first $11,700 and may order more only where the child’s proven needs justify it.
How long does a divorce take in Dallas County?
At least 60 days. Texas law bars a court from granting a final decree until 60 days after the petition is filed, so no Dallas County divorce finishes faster than that except in family-violence cases.
Sixty days is the floor, not the average. An uncontested divorce where both spouses agree on everything and there are no children typically finalizes in two to four months. A contested case with children, a house, retirement accounts, or a business commonly runs eight to eighteen months, depending on the court’s docket and how many hearings are needed. What actually drives the timeline is disagreement, not paperwork. Cases that reach a mediated settlement move quickly; cases that go to trial wait for a trial setting.
What happens at my first family court hearing in Dallas County?
Your first setting is usually a temporary orders hearing, not a trial. The judge decides who lives where, who the children live with, and who pays what while the case is pending.
These hearings are short — often under an hour, sometimes far less — and evidence-driven. Judges expect documents, not narrative: pay stubs, a proposed possession schedule, a household budget, text messages if conduct is at issue. Temporary orders frequently become the template for the final order, because courts are reluctant to disrupt an arrangement children have already settled into. That is why it is worth preparing for as if it were the trial.
Can child support or custody orders be changed later?
Yes. A Dallas County order can be modified when there has been a material and substantial change in circumstances, such as a job loss, relocation, or a change in the child’s needs.
To modify an order you generally file a petition to modify in the same court that issued the original order and show the change meets the legal standard under Family Code Chapter 156. We can evaluate whether your situation qualifies before you file.
Does Texas favor mothers in custody cases?
No. Texas Family Code §153.001 presumes it is in a child’s best interest for both parents to have frequent contact, and courts apply the same best-interest standard regardless of the parent’s gender.
Dallas County judges look at factors such as each parent’s caretaking history, stability, ability to co-parent, and any history of family violence or substance abuse — not the parent’s sex.
Talk to a Dallas Family Law Attorney
Talk to a Dallas family lawyer before the other side files
Filing order affects which county hears your case and which standing order applies. A strategy session gets you a plan, a realistic cost range, and a timeline — in writing, before you commit to anything.
