Family Law

Southlake Family Law Attorney

Family law disputes can test your patience, threaten your financial stability, and disrupt your relationship with your children. When your marriage, home, or parental rights hang in the balance, you need a dedicated Southlake family law attorney who understands the local court system and refuses to back down.

At Barrett Legal PLLC, we bring aggressive legal strategies and considerable courtroom preparation to every family law client we advise and represent. High-net-worth marital estates, complex business valuations, and contested child custody arrangements demand assertive legal advocacy.

Whether you expect a contentious divorce or require immediate legal intervention to protect your property or children, our legal team takes command of the situation from day one. Call Barrett Legal PLLC at 817-512-7044 to schedule your initial consultation with an experienced Southlake family lawyer.

Aggressive Representation for Southlake Family Law Matters

Family law in Texas addresses the most sensitive and personal aspects of our lives. When legal disputes arise within a family, the outcome creates lasting financial and emotional consequences. A Southlake family law attorney at Barrett Legal PLLC can handle complex family law matters with a sharp focus on securing favorable resolutions while safeguarding your assets and parental rights.

Properly dividing a couple’s high-value marital property, retirement benefits, businesses, and real estate requires extensive legal knowledge and skill. We can help our clients enter negotiations or a courtroom from a position of strength. Barrett Legal PLLC handles the following matters of family law:

  1. Divorce, property division, and protective orders
  2. Child custody and child support orders and modifications
  3. Spousal support (alimony) orders and modifications
  4. Adoption
  5. Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements

A Southlake family lawyer at Barrett Legal PLLC will treat your family-related legal needs with the urgency they deserve. We don’t recommend taking weak settlements. We prepare every divorce and custody case for trial and ensure that opposing parties understand our tenacity and resolve.

The Texas Divorce Process

From an initial divorce petition to the final decree of divorce, a family lawyer at Barrett Legal PLLC can manage every step of the divorce process to protect your long-term interests.

Filing the Original Petition

The process begins when one partner submits an Original Petition for Divorce to a Texas district court. To file for a divorce in Texas, at least one spouse must have resided in the state for the preceding 6 months and resided in the county of filing for at least 90 days. Texas allows both fault-based and no-fault divorce.

Fault-based divorce grounds in Texas include adultery, cruelty, abandonment, or a felony conviction. A no-fault divorce means the marriage has become insupportable due to conflict or discord that destroys the marital relationship.

Standing Orders and Protective Orders

Upon receiving a divorce petition, Texas courts impose Standing Orders barring either party from concealing property or liquidating marital assets. If immediate protection is required to prevent a spouse from draining bank accounts or removing children, Barrett Legal PLLC can request a protective order from the court.

Temporary Orders Hearings

Within two to three weeks of receiving your divorce petition, the court holds a hearing for temporary orders to establish the ground rules while divorce proceedings are pending. A temporary orders hearing decides issues that include:

  1. Temporary spousal maintenance or financial support
  2. Temporary physical custody and schedules for children
  3. Temporary child support orders and health insurance coverage
  4. Possession and use of the marital residence
  5. Interim attorney fees and allocation of monthly marital debts

Temporary orders set the tone for a divorce proceeding. A divorce lawyer at Barrett Legal PLLC can work from the start to establish favorable conditions that put you in the best possible legal position.

Formal Discovery and Financial Examination

High-asset divorces require both parties to make financial disclosures. They also require a full financial investigation. Your lawyer can examine bank records, stock option plans, deferred compensation packages, tax returns, and other key financial documents to ensure that all marital property is accounted for when the court divides the marital estate.

Settlement Negotiations, Mediation, and Trial

Texas law establishes a 60-day waiting period after a divorce petition is filed before a court may issue a final decree of divorce. During or after this period, divorcing spouses may pursue mediation or private negotiations. If settlement negotiations fail, we can take the matter to court and fight for your rights and long-term best interests.

Division of Marital Assets and High-Net-Worth Estates

Frequently, the most contentious aspect of a divorce is the division of marital property. Particularly in high-net-worth divorces, dividing marital property requires considerable financial knowledge and strict legal compliance.

Community Property and Separate Property

Texas is a community property state. A community property state is a jurisdiction where most income, assets, and debts acquired by a married couple during the marriage are owned equally (50/50) by both spouses. Here’s how Texas law categorizes a divorcing couple’s assets:

  1. Community Property: Under Texas state law, community property consists of all property, assets, income, and debts acquired by either party during the marriage, other than separate property.
  2. Separate Property: Separate property includes assets owned by a partner before the marriage, property acquired in the marriage by gift or inheritance, and personal injury recoveries (excluding compensation for loss of earning capacity).

Property owned by either spouse during or upon divorce is presumed by the court to be community property. Overcoming this presumption requires you to prove separate ownership with clear and convincing evidence. Barrett Legal PLLC works with forensic accountants to conduct detailed asset tracing, using established accounting methods to prove the separate character of funds and real estate.

Division of the Marital Estate

Texas courts don’t require an exact 50/50 split of community property. Instead, state law requires the judge to order a division of the marital estate in a fashion the court deems just and right, with due regard for the rights of each partner and any children of the marriage. Judges consider these legal and financial factors when ordering a disproportionate division of community property in favor of one spouse:

  1. Fault in the breakup of the marriage (such as adultery or cruelty).
  2. Any disparity of earning capacities and financial resources between the spouses.
  3. The physical health, age, and education of each party.
  4. Custody arrangements and primary physical care of minor children.
  5. Claims of waste or constructive fraud committed by either spouse against community assets.

Reimbursement Claims and Fraud

If a spouse used community funds to enhance their separate property or transferred assets to third parties without consent, your divorce lawyer can assert claims for reimbursement, and a court can reconstitute the community estate if a spouse committed actual or constructive fraud against it, ensuring that the injured spouse receives a fair share of the reconstituted assets.

Child Custody, Conservatorship, and Parental Rights

Nothing matters more than our children. In Texas law, custody is called conservatorship. Our goal at Barrett Legal PLLC is to defend your parental rights and help you maintain a secure environment for your child’s well-being.

Types of Conservatorship in Texas

Texas law distinguishes between legal custody of a child (decision-making authority) and physical possession of the child (visitation). Courts appoint parents as conservators (custodial parents) under three legal arrangements:

  1. Joint managing conservatorship (JMC): A Texas court presumes that designating both parents as joint managing conservators is in the child’s best interests. In a JMC arrangement, parents share decision-making responsibilities regarding the child’s education, medical care, and religion. 
  2. Sole managing conservatorship (SMC): If the court finds domestic violence, child abuse, neglect, or severe substance abuse, it awards sole managing conservatorship to one parent. The sole managing conservator holds exclusive decision-making authority over the child’s life.
  3. Possessory conservator: A parent not named as a managing conservator may be designated as a possessory conservator. This parent retains basic parental rights unless restricted by court order.

Geographic Restrictions

When it issues a joint managing conservatorship order, the court usually imposes a geographic restriction that defines where the primary parent may establish the child’s residence. Judges typically restrict the child’s primary residence to preserve regular involvement by both parents.

The Best Interests of the Child

Child custody decisions in Texas rest on this overarching requirement of Texas law: the best interests of the child shall always be the court’s primary consideration. When determining the child’s best interests, local courts consider factors including the child’s wishes, the child’s emotional and physical needs, the parenting abilities of those seeking custody, and the stability of the proposed home environment.

Child Support and Spousal Maintenance Standards

Financial obligations following a divorce must accurately reflect the couple’s economic circumstances. A family law attorney at Barrett Legal PLLC can ensure that child support and spousal maintenance orders are calculated accurately and fairly.

Child Support Calculation Under Texas Guidelines

A Texas court determines the child support amount by calculating the paying parent’s net resources, including gross income from wage earnings, self-employment, dividends, interest, rental property, and bonuses, minus deductions for taxes, Social Security, union dues, and the child’s health insurance costs. Texas law sets child support as a percentage of the paying parent’s net monthly resources:

  1. For 1 child: 20%
  2. For 2 children: 25%
  3. For 3 children: 30%
  4. For 4 children: 35%
  5. For 5 or more children: 40%

These figures apply up to the state-established net monthly cap. A court may order a child support amount above this limit if the child’s proven needs justify it. In addition to basic child support, a court may also order the paying parent to provide medical and dental support.

Spousal Maintenance

Texas law strictly limits court-ordered post-divorce spousal support, referred to as spousal maintenance. Spouses requesting maintenance must prove that they lack the resources (including separate property divided in the divorce) to cover their minimum reasonable needs, and the requesting spouse must also satisfy at least one of the following eligibility requirements:

  1. The paying spouse received a conviction (or deferred adjudication) for a crime of family violence within the 2 years before the divorce filing or as the divorce was pending.
  2. The requesting spouse is unable to earn an adequate income due to an incapacitating physical or mental disability.
  3. The marriage lasted 10 years or longer, and the party requesting support cannot earn an income adequate to meet minimum reasonable needs.
  4. The party seeking maintenance is the custodian of a child of the marriage who needs substantial care due to a mental or physical disability, preventing the spouse from earning sufficient income.

Under Texas law, there is a presumption that spousal maintenance isn’t necessary unless the party seeking support has diligently sought employment or developed skills to become self-supporting.

For How Long is Spousal Maintenance Paid?

Monthly spousal maintenance payments may not exceed the lesser of $5,000 or 20 percent of the paying spouse’s average monthly gross income. The maximum duration of spousal maintenance payments is based on the length of the marriage:

  1. Up to 5 years for marriages lasting 10 to 20 years, or cases involving family violence.
  2. Up to 7 years for marriages lasting 20 to 30 years.
  3. Up to 10 years for marriages lasting 30 years or longer.

When these guidelines are insufficient, a Southlake family lawyer can negotiate a contractual alimony agreement that establishes a customized payment arrangement enforceable under standard Texas contract law.

Marital Agreements and Protective Orders 

The family law attorneys at Barrett Legal PLLC assist our clients in negotiating and preparing binding marital agreements before or during marriage, and we move rapidly to secure emergency protective orders when the safety of family members is compromised.

Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements

Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements allow couples to determine financial outcomes in advance, shielding personal assets and business interests from future conflict. Prenuptial agreements let prospective spouses define separate property, waive community property creation, and outline potential spousal maintenance terms in the event of divorce.

A prenuptial contract is unenforceable if the challenging party proves that they didn’t sign the document voluntarily, or that the agreement was unconscionable when originally executed, and they were not provided with a fair and complete disclosure of the other spouse’s property or financial obligations.

Postnuptial agreements allow married couples to convert community property into separate property during the marriage. The attorneys at Barrett Legal PLLC prepare prenuptial and postnuptial contracts that are enforceable in court and fully compliant with Texas law.

Domestic Violence Protective Orders

Family violence requires an immediate, aggressive legal response. If you or your children face physical abuse, threats, or harassment from a spouse or another family or household member, your attorney at Barrett Legal PLLC can request on your behalf a protective order for emergency relief.

A Texas court may issue a Temporary Ex Parte Protective Order without prior notice to the respondent (the alleged abuser) if there is a clear danger of family violence.

Following a court hearing, if the judge finds that family violence has taken place and is likely to occur again, the court enters a Final Protective Order. A final protective order can exclude the abuser from the home, require mandatory counseling, prohibit contact, award temporary child custody, and ban the possession of firearms.

Post-Divorce Modifications and Enforcement

Final court orders reflect conditions at the time of the final divorce decree. When life circumstances shift significantly, or an ex-spouse refuses to comply with a court order, a formal modification of the order may be necessary.

Modifying Custody, Visitation, or Child Support

Court orders regarding child custody or support are not necessarily permanent. A Texas court may modify conservatorship, visitation schedules, or child support amounts if modification serves the best interests of the child. The grounds for modifying a child custody order include:

  1. A material and substantial change in the circumstances of the child, a conservator, or another party affected by the order.
  2. The child is at least 12 years of age and has expressed a preference regarding primary residence to the judge in chambers.
  3. The conservator with the exclusive right to designate primary residence voluntarily relinquishes primary care and possession of the child to another person for at least six months.

Child support orders may be modified if circumstances have materially and substantially changed, or if at least 3 years have passed since the order was entered and the monthly support amount differs by at least 20 percent or by at least $100 from state guidelines.

Enforcement Actions and Contempt

When an ex-spouse violates a court order by withholding child support, denying court-ordered visitation, or failing to turn over awarded marital property, we can file a Motion for Enforcement. Enforcement remedies include:

  1. Holding the non-compliant party in criminal or civil contempt, punishable by county jail confinement and fines.
  2. Revoking professional licenses, driver’s licenses, and hunting and fishing permits.
  3. Imposing judicial liens on real property and issuing wage garnishment orders for unpaid support.
  4. Awarding make-up visitation time for wrongfully denied visitations.
  5. Ordering the non-compliant party to pay all court costs and legal fees

Let Us Fight for You and Your Children

Legal battles involving your home, your assets, and your children demand an aggressive legal strategy and unyielding resolve. Barrett Legal PLLC can fight for your family’s future, applying our extensive trial experience and comprehensive legal knowledge to achieve positive results.

In a divorce, custody, or support dispute, you don’t have to face the legal system alone. Call Barrett Legal PLLC at 817-512-7044 to schedule your first consultation with an experienced Texas family law attorney.