Austin Divorce
Lawyers Serving Central Texas Families

Divorce is one of the hardest things a family goes through, and the right lawyer makes it far less overwhelming. We handle every kind of Austin divorce, from a fully agreed uncontested case to high-conflict contested litigation. We will tell you what your options actually are, what each one costs, and what we think you should do.

Key Takeaways

Texas is a no-fault, community property state with a mandatory 60-day waiting period, and Travis County issues a standing order that binds both spouses the day you file.
Agreed or disputed is the fork that drives everything — cost, timeline, privacy, and how much a judge decides for you.
Temporary orders become the status quo, and a mediated settlement agreement is binding once signed. Those two moments decide more cases than trial does.
We handle every divorce type from one downtown Austin office, and the consultation is free.

Divorce in Texas: The Basics

Written and legally reviewed by Shane M. Boasberg, founding attorney at SMB Law, PC, licensed in Texas since 2002. Last updated August 26, 2026.

To file in Texas, you or your spouse must have lived in the state six months and in your county 90 days. Texas is a no-fault state, so nobody has to prove wrongdoing — though fault grounds like adultery or cruelty can still move property division and support.

Almost every divorce waits at least 60 days from filing before it can be finalized. What happens after that depends on how much you and your spouse agree on. Agreed cases often finish shortly after the waiting period; disputed ones run months.

Filing here means the Travis County district clerk, and Travis County issues a standing order the moment you file. It binds both spouses immediately — no moving the children out of the area, no emptying accounts, no cancelling insurance. People get in trouble in the first week because nobody told them it existed. We tell you.

Which Kind of Divorce Is Yours?

The single biggest fork in the road is whether your divorce is agreed or disputed. That one fact drives everything downstream — the timeline, the cost, the privacy, and how much a judge decides for you instead of the two of you deciding for yourselves.

Most people do not get to pick freely. Which path you are on depends on your spouse as much as on you. What you can control is how prepared you are for the one you land in.

Uncontested Divorce

If you and your spouse agree on everything that matters — property, custody, support — an uncontested divorce is the fastest and cheapest way through, often finishing shortly after the 60-day wait.

We draft it, make sure the agreement protects you rather than just closing the file, and keep it moving. One warning: an agreed divorce is only cheap if the agreement is sound. We have fixed enough decrees written in a hurry to know what that costs.

Contested Divorce

When you cannot agree on something important, the court decides it for you. That is a contested divorce, and it runs through temporary orders, discovery, mediation, and sometimes trial. The usual flashpoints are custody, the house or the business, and spousal support.

We prepare a contested case as if it is going in front of a judge, because the ones that settle well are the ones that were ready not to. Preparation is what gives a settlement number its weight.

Specialized Divorce Situations We Handle

Some divorces carry an extra layer, and each of these has its own page. Collaborative divorce resolves everything out of court with specially trained counsel on both sides. Military divorce brings in federal rules on pensions, residency, and deployment, and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act can pause a case entirely. High-net-worth divorce turns on business valuation, complex assets, and separate-property tracing.

Our LGBTQ divorce practice handles the property and parentage questions same-sex couples still run into in Texas, particularly where the relationship predates 2015. The fundamentals do not change: know your rights, value everything correctly, negotiate from strength.

What an Austin Divorce Lawyer Actually Changes

Here is the honest version. In a simple agreed divorce with no children and no real property, an Austin divorce lawyer is largely there to keep you from signing something you will regret. In every other kind of case, counsel is the difference between an outcome you can live with and one you spend years undoing.

What you pay for is judgment — what is negotiable, what a Travis County judge is likely to order on these facts, when to push instead of settle — and error prevention. Missed disclosures, bad temporary orders that become the status quo, an agreement signed at the worst moment of your life. We practice Texas family law in these courts every week, which is a different thing from reading the statute.

The Attorney Handling Your Divorce

When you hire this firm you work with Shane M. Boasberg, not a case manager you meet once. Shane has been licensed in Texas since 2002 and founded SMB Law, PC in 2010. Before private practice he worked in the Texas Legislature and the Office of the Texas Attorney General, which is a useful education in how institutions behave when they are on the other side.

He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the Austin Bar Association, and has been recognized by Texas Monthly as a Rising Star and by Elite Lawyer. We handle divorce and family law across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties, from agreed filings to high-conflict custody and property litigation. Clients north of Austin can start with our Round Rock divorce lawyer page, which covers the Williamson County standing order and filing in Georgetown.

That range is the point. Because we run every divorce type out of one office, our advice about which path fits your case is based on your facts, not on the only service we sell. If you have been searching for a divorce attorney near me, our office is at 1204 San Antonio Street, a few blocks from the Travis County courthouse.

How We Build Your Strategy

Every case gets a strategy built on your facts, not a template. That starts at the free consultation. We map the assets, the custody picture, and the pressure points, then tell you which path — agreement, mediation, collaboration, or litigation — gets you the best result for the least damage.

We will also tell you when you are wrong about something. Divorce clients are rarely at their most clear-headed, and a family law attorney who only agrees with you is not doing the job you hired them for.

The Texas Divorce Process in Travis County, Step by Step

Most Texas divorces move through the same stages. The difference is how many of them you actually need. It starts with filing the petition, serving your spouse, and waiting out the mandatory 60 days. An agreed case can go almost straight from filing to a final decree. A disputed one works through every step below.

How long each stage takes depends on the disputes, the county, and the court’s calendar. Travis County runs much of its family docket through associate judges, and the wait for a contested hearing setting is often the real timeline in your case — not anything either lawyer is doing.

Filing the Divorce Petition

It starts with the Original Petition for Divorce, filed with the district clerk in the county where you meet the 90-day residency requirement. Six months in Texas, 90 days in the county — that is what gives the court jurisdiction.

The petition states that you want a divorce and on what grounds. Once it is filed, your spouse has to be served, or sign a waiver of service if the case is agreed. How service happens matters more than people expect: it is the first thing your spouse learns about the case, and it sets the tone for everything after.

Temporary Orders

Temporary orders hold everything steady while the divorce runs: who lives in the house, who pays which bill, where the children sleep, whether either of you can move money.

Do not treat this hearing as a warm-up. Temporary orders become the status quo, and Texas judges are reluctant to disturb a custody arrangement that has worked for six months. What is decided here frequently decides the case.

Discovery Phase

Discovery is where both sides gather proof: written questions, document requests, disclosures, and in bigger cases depositions. Bank statements, retirement accounts, business records, and text messages all come out here.

It is also where hidden assets surface. If you think your spouse is moving money or understating what a business earns, say so early — the tools work better before the trail goes cold.

Settlement Negotiations

Most Texas divorces settle, and most settle at mediation. Both sides sit in separate rooms with a neutral mediator moving between them until there is a deal or there is not.

Take mediation seriously. In Texas a signed mediated settlement agreement is generally binding and very hard to undo — more binding than most people realize when they sign it at eight o’clock at night because everyone is exhausted. Read it. We will read it with you.

Trial Preparation

When a case cannot settle, it goes to trial: exhibits organized, witnesses lined up, valuations backed by someone qualified to defend them, and a clear theory of what you want the court to do and why. Texas family trials can be to the bench or, on certain issues, to a jury. Either way the judge signs a final decree that governs the rest of your financial and parenting life.

Reading the Divorce Decree Before You Sign It

The decree is the final order: property division, custody and possession schedule, child support, spousal support. It is binding and it will shape your life for years, so have an Austin divorce lawyer read it against what you actually agreed to.

Decrees go wrong in boring ways. A retirement account divided without the qualified domestic relations order needed to move the money. A possession schedule that reads fine until the first holiday. Vague language about who refinances the house and by when. We catch those before signing, because afterward the fix is a new lawsuit and the windows to correct a decree are narrow.

Children in a Texas Divorce: Custody and Support

If you have children, custody and support are usually the whole case. Texas starts from the child’s best interest and generally presumes joint managing conservatorship — which is about decision-making rights, not equal time. Possession is a separate question, and the standard possession order is the default the court works from. Our child custody and child support pages go deeper. Here is what courts weigh when parents cannot agree:

Texas courts decide two things: who holds which rights and duties, and who has the children when. Judges look hardest at stability — who does the day-to-day parenting, who keeps the child in the same school, who can make the schedule work.

What moves a custody case is rarely a speech. It is the calendar, the school records, the texts, and whether a parent supports the child’s relationship with the other parent. Judges notice that last one most.

Joint vs. Sole Custody

Joint managing conservatorship means both parents share the rights and duties of raising the children, usually with one parent holding the exclusive right to decide primary residence. Sole managing conservatorship gives one parent those rights alone, and Texas courts order it when the evidence supports it — family violence, substance abuse, absence, or a history of instability.

Temporary orders set the custody, possession, and support arrangement while the case is pending, and as noted above, that arrangement tends to stick.

Best Interests of the Child Standard

Best interest is the standard behind every custody decision in Texas, and courts apply a familiar set of factors: the child’s wishes where age-appropriate, emotional and physical needs, any danger to the child, each parent’s abilities and plans, the stability of each home, and any conduct suggesting the existing relationship is not a proper one.

Arguments that sound powerful to a hurt spouse frequently land badly here. The court is not weighing who was the better husband or wife. It is weighing who is the better arrangement for this child.

Modifying Custody Orders

Changing a custody order means filing a modification, and the bar is deliberately high: a material and substantial change in circumstances since the last order, plus a showing that the change serves the child’s best interest. A move, a job change, a remarriage, or a parent’s circumstances deteriorating can qualify. Being unhappy with the order does not.

Property Division in a Texas Divorce

Texas is a community property state. Almost everything either of you acquired during the marriage belongs to both of you, regardless of whose name is on it or who earned it, and the court divides it in a manner that is just and right — which is not a synonym for equal.

Two things decide most property cases: characterization and valuation. Characterization is what counts as community versus separate. Valuation is what the community estate is actually worth, which gets genuinely hard once a house, a retirement account, or a business is involved. Our property division practice handles both.

Community Property Laws in Texas

Because Texas presumes everything acquired during the marriage is community property, the burden falls on the spouse claiming otherwise. In dividing it, the court can consider each spouse’s earning capacity, education, health, who has the children, fault in the breakup, and what each will need going forward. That is how a just-and-right division ends up at 55/45 or further apart.

Common-law marriage counts. If a Texas court finds an informal marriage existed, that couple divorces under the same community property rules as anyone else — which surprises people who never had a ceremony.

Identifying Separate Property

Separate property is what you owned before the marriage, plus anything you received during it by gift or inheritance, plus certain personal injury recoveries. It is not divided.

Proving it is the hard part. Texas requires clear and convincing evidence, and separate money that has been mixed into a joint account can lose its character entirely. Tracing it takes records, and sometimes a forensic accountant. Start pulling statements early.

High-Value Assets and Business Interests

When a divorce involves a closely held business, a professional practice, or a serious investment portfolio, valuation becomes the case. High-net-worth divorces routinely need a business valuation expert, and the two sides often arrive at very different numbers from the same books.

Hiding assets is a bad plan. Texas courts have real remedies for it, including awarding a disproportionate share to the other spouse, and the discovery tools to find it are better than people assume. Disclose, then fight about value.

Spousal Support and Alimony Considerations

Texas is one of the least generous states in the country on spousal support, and that surprises almost everyone. Court-ordered spousal maintenance is available only in narrow circumstances: a marriage of at least 10 years where the spouse asking cannot meet minimum reasonable needs, a disability, care of a disabled child, or a family violence conviction within two years of filing.

Even then it is capped. Maintenance cannot exceed $5,000 a month or 20% of the paying spouse’s average monthly gross income, whichever is less, and the duration is limited by statute. Our spousal support practice covers both maintenance and the negotiated alternative below.

Eligibility for Spousal Maintenance

The 10-year marriage is the usual gateway, paired with a showing that you cannot cover your minimum reasonable needs. Duration tracks length of marriage: generally up to five years for a 10-to-20-year marriage, seven for 20 to 30, and 10 past 30. Those are ceilings, not entitlements — courts order the shortest period they think will work.

Contractual Alimony Agreements

Contractual alimony is different: a private agreement between the spouses rather than a court order, which means it can exceed the statutory caps and run longer because it is agreed to rather than imposed. It is also enforced as a contract rather than through contempt, so the drafting matters enormously. Get the tax treatment, the termination triggers, and the security for payment right before you sign.

Mediation and Collaborative Divorce

Mediation and collaborative law both resolve a divorce without a judge, and they are not the same thing. Mediation is a session or two with a neutral third party, and most Texas courts require it before a contested trial setting anyway. Collaborative divorce is a whole process: both spouses and both lawyers sign an agreement to settle out of court, often with a neutral financial professional involved.

Mediation in Contested Divorces

The mediator decides nothing and represents neither of you. They carry offers, test assumptions, and push toward the middle. Our job in that room is to make sure the deal is one you can live with in five years, not just one that ends a long day — because a mediated settlement agreement in Texas is generally binding the moment it is signed.

Collaborative Divorce Approach

The collaborative commitment has teeth: if it breaks down and the case goes to litigation, both lawyers are disqualified and both spouses start over. That is deliberate, and it gives everyone a stake in settling. It suits couples who will co-parent for another decade. It suits hidden money, a serious power imbalance, or family violence badly.

What to Expect in a Travis County Courtroom

Travis County family cases are heard downtown, much of the docket through associate judges, and hearings are shorter than television suggests — a temporary orders hearing may give each side under an hour. What is prepared matters more than what is said. Bring exhibits organized and copied, and know your own numbers cold. Nothing damages a witness faster than not knowing their own finances.

Gathering Evidence

The evidence that decides family cases is unglamorous: tax returns, pay stubs, bank and credit card statements, retirement statements, deeds and closing documents, a calendar of who actually had the children, school and medical records, and the text message thread.

To be usable, evidence has to be relevant, authenticated, and not privileged. Screenshots need context and dates. Recordings have their own rules. Bring us everything and let us sort what is admissible — do not decide on your own that something does not matter.

How to Conduct Yourself in Front of the Judge

Dress like a job interview, arrive early, call the judge Your Honor, answer the question asked, and stop when you have answered it. Say nothing while your spouse testifies — judges watch faces, and eye-rolling has cost people more than bad testimony. Write down anything untrue and hand it to us.

The Emotional and Financial Side of Divorce

Divorce brings anger, fear, grief, and guilt, often in the same afternoon. Normal — and expensive if it drives the decisions. The clients who come out best put that somewhere other than the legal case: a therapist, a support group, family.

We are lawyers, not counselors. What we can do is keep the legal side from making it worse — no motions filed to make a point, no bills run up on arguments that change nothing.

Managing Emotional Stress

Keep the long view. The question is not what feels satisfying this week, it is what your life looks like in three years. Fighting over the furniture is the most expensive way to lose money in a divorce, and mediation lowers the temperature at a fraction of the cost.

Financial Planning and Budgeting

Get your financial picture together early. Pull twelve months of statements on every account, find the tax returns, and build an honest monthly budget for the household you are about to be running alone. That budget drives the support conversation and the property conversation both.

Then plan for after. Housing, health insurance once you come off a spouse’s plan, the tax consequences of which assets you keep, and updating your will and beneficiary designations. A retirement account still naming your former spouse is a common and painful mistake. Our free Texas divorce cost calculator helps you plan for the legal side of it.

Texas Divorce Cost Calculator

What will your divorce actually cost? Four things decide it: whether you and your spouse agree, whether children are involved, how complicated the property is, and whether the case settles or tries. Answer those below for a ballpark based on published Texas averages, then call us about what your case would really take. Want a version you can bookmark or share? Use the standalone Texas divorce cost calculator page, or read our breakdown of what a divorce lawyer costs in Texas.

Where do you and your spouse stand? Agreement on property, custody, and support is the single biggest cost factor.

Minor children involved? Children add a parenting plan and support orders — and in contested cases, possible custody evaluations.

Property & assets Complex estates can require appraisals, business valuations, or forensic accounting.

How is the disagreement likely to resolve? Most Texas divorces settle before trial. Mediation usually cuts costs substantially.

Disclaimer: This calculator provides a rough educational estimate based on published Texas market averages — it is not a quote, a flat fee, or legal advice, and it does not reflect SMB Law, PC’s specific rates. Actual costs depend on the facts of your case, how contested it becomes, and factors no calculator can predict. Texas requires a minimum 60-day waiting period for most divorces. Use of this tool does not create an attorney–client relationship.

Modifications and Enforcements

The decree is not always the end. Custody, possession, and child support can be modified when circumstances change materially and substantially. Spousal maintenance can be modified in narrower circumstances; contractual alimony usually cannot be, which is one more reason the drafting matters.

Enforcement is the other half. A decree only works if both people follow it, and when one does not, the remedies are real — contempt, wage withholding, judgment for unpaid support, and attorney’s fees. Our enforcement practice handles those, and our modification practice handles the other side.

Mistakes That Cost People Money in a Texas Divorce

The mistakes that cost the most are boring and preventable.

Not disclosing everything. Texas requires it, the other side will find it, and getting caught costs you credibility with the judge on every other issue in the case.

Treating temporary orders as a formality. They become the status quo, and the status quo tends to become the final order.

Letting the emotion pick the fight. Every hour spent on something that will not change the outcome is billed, and it buys nothing.

Signing to make it stop. Mediated settlement agreements are binding. The relief of ending a long day is not a reason to accept terms you will resent for a decade.

Putting it on social media. Assume everything you post reaches the other side’s lawyer, because it does.

How to Choose an Austin Divorce Attorney

Talk to more than one firm, and treat the consultation as an interview. You are choosing someone who will know more about your finances and your children than most of your family does. If you want a longer checklist to bring to that meeting, we put together the top 10 questions to ask a divorce lawyer before you hire one.

Ask who will actually handle your case day to day, how they bill and what the retainer covers, whether they have tried a case in front of your likely judge, and what they think your realistic outcome is. That last answer tells you the most. A lawyer who promises you everything in a first meeting is either not listening or not being straight with you.

Judgment matters more than volume. Some cases need a fighter, and most need someone who knows when fighting is the expensive way to lose. What you want is a lawyer who can do both and tells you honestly which one your case calls for.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Hire

Three questions worth asking every firm: Who returns my call, and how fast? What does this cost from here to a decree? And what is the weakest part of my case? That last one is the test. Every case has a weak part, and an Austin divorce lawyer who cannot name yours either has not thought about it or will not tell you hard things later, when it matters more.

What Our Clients Say

Read reviews with a filter. Outcomes in family law are partly driven by facts nobody chose, so read for process instead: did the lawyer return calls, did the client understand what was happening, were they surprised by a bill. Ours are at the top of this page, and clients mention the same two things — they could reach their attorney, and they always knew where the case stood.

Talk to an Austin Divorce Lawyer Today

Every divorce is different, but the fundamentals hold. Know which path you are on, get counsel early, protect the temporary orders, disclose everything, and decide for the version of you that exists in three years.

If you are searching for a divorce lawyer near me in Austin, we are at 1204 San Antonio Street by the Travis County courthouse, handling agreed, contested, collaborative, military, high-net-worth, and LGBTQ divorces across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties. Call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003 or request a free consultation. We will tell you what we think it takes and be straight about what it costs.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a divorce take in Texas?

Sixty days from filing at an absolute minimum — that waiting period is mandatory in almost every Texas case. Agreed divorces often finish shortly after it. Contested cases run several months to a year or more, and the limiting factor is usually the court’s calendar rather than either lawyer.

What is the difference between a contested and uncontested divorce?

Uncontested means you agree on everything that matters: property, custody, support. Contested means a judge resolves what you cannot. The gap between them in cost, time, privacy, and stress is enormous, which is why the first thing we do is figure out honestly which one you are in.

Do I have to prove my spouse did something wrong?

No. Texas is a no-fault state and insupportability is grounds enough. That said, proven fault such as adultery or cruelty can still influence how a court divides property and whether it orders support, so it is not irrelevant — it is just not required.

How is property split in a Texas divorce?

Texas is a community property state, so most of what either of you acquired during the marriage belongs to both of you. Courts divide it in a manner that is just and right, which is not automatically 50/50 — earning capacity, health, who has the children, fault, and separate property all move the number.

What does an Austin divorce lawyer cost?

Filing fees run roughly $250 to $350 in Travis County, and the total depends almost entirely on how much you and your spouse agree on. An uncontested divorce costs a fraction of a litigated one, and mediation lands in between. We talk about fees openly at the free consultation, in numbers, not ranges you cannot plan around.

Attorney fees & case costs (est.)	$0 – $0
Court & filing fees (Travis County)	$0 – $0
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Austin Divorce Lawyers Serving Central Texas Families