Leander Divorce Lawyer | Filed in Williamson County, Heard in Georgetown
Facing a divorce in Leander? Your case is filed in Williamson County and heard at the Justice Center in Georgetown, not in Austin. SMB Law, PC handles divorce, custody, and support for Leander families, and we know the local rules that decide how your case starts.
Serving Leander Families in Williamson County
Leander is one of the fastest-growing cities in Central Texas, anchored by the Leander MetroRail station and green spaces like Devine Lake Park, with popular neighborhoods including Crystal Falls, Travisso, and Mason Hills. Children here attend Leander ISD, and the steady influx of new families means we handle everything from first-home divorces to cases involving substantial, recently built equity.
Leander sits in Williamson County, so your case is filed and heard at the Williamson County Justice Center in Georgetown. Our downtown Austin office is about 22 miles southeast, roughly a 30 minute drive down the 183A tollway and US-183, and we also meet Leander clients by phone and video. Call (512) 561-5003 to speak with a Leander divorce lawyer.
What Our Clients Say
Key Takeaway
- A Leander divorce is a Williamson County case. It is filed with the District Clerk at the Williamson County Justice Center, 405 M.L.K. Street in Georgetown, and heard there rather than in Austin. See our Texas divorce law overview for the statewide rules.
- Williamson County's standing order takes effect the day you file. It works as a restraining order for fourteen days, then hardens into a temporary injunction, and it is enforceable by contempt.
- That standing order does not cover modifications. If you are changing an existing custody or support order in Williamson County, none of those automatic protections attach, which surprises most parents.
Leander Divorce Attorneys for Williamson County Families
Leander has grown faster than almost anywhere in Texas, from a small town on the north end of the Capital Metro rail line to a city of well over seventy thousand. That growth shows up in the divorces we handle here: a house bought years ago that is now worth far more, a commute that shapes the whole parenting schedule, and two people who moved out here for space and now need to divide it.
We handle divorce, custody, and support for Leander families, and we appear in the Georgetown courts where these cases are decided. If you want the statewide picture, our contested divorce page covers it. This page covers what is specific to Leander and Williamson County.
Where a Leander Divorce Is Actually Filed
Leander sits in Williamson County, so your divorce is filed with the Williamson County District Clerk and heard at the Williamson County Justice Center, 405 M.L.K. Street, Georgetown, Texas 78626. From most of Leander that is a run east on 183A and then across. It is not filed in Austin, and the Travis County procedures you may have read elsewhere do not apply to you.
Attorneys have been required to file electronically through eFileTexas since July 1, 2014. Before you can file at all, one spouse must have lived in Texas for six months and in Williamson County for ninety days.
The filing fee is $350, and it is the same whether or not you have children. Some pages imply children cost more to file. They do not. Add $8 for each citation the clerk issues, and $70 if the clerk serves your spouse by certified mail.
The Standing Order That Starts Working the Day You File
Williamson County has a standing order in family cases, and it is the single most important thing to understand about starting a case here. The current version took effect November 1, 2023. It binds both spouses automatically the moment the petition is filed. Nobody has to ask a judge for it.
For the first fourteen days it operates as a temporary restraining order. After that it converts into a temporary injunction that stays in force until the judge replaces it. It is enforceable by contempt, which means jail time and fines are on the table for violating it.
What it actually stops: emptying accounts, selling or hiding property, canceling the health or car insurance, running up debt on joint credit, threatening or harassing the other spouse, and removing the children from the State of Texas. It also bars either parent from disparaging the other in front of the kids.
One clause catches people off guard. The order prohibits tracking or monitoring the other spouse, including phone location apps, vehicle GPS units, and spyware on a shared computer. Plenty of Leander couples share a family location app without thinking twice about it. The day the petition is filed, continuing to watch that map becomes a violation.
Here is the practical trap: in Williamson County, if you are represented by an attorney, the clerk will bounce your petition if a copy of the standing order is not attached to it. That is not a formality. It is a rejected filing and a lost week. Our Leander divorce lawyer attaches it as a matter of routine and walks you through every clause before you sign anything.
How Long a Leander Divorce Takes, and What It Costs
Texas requires a sixty day waiting period between the day the petition is filed and the day a judge can sign the decree. That is the floor, not the average. An agreed case in Williamson County where both spouses have signed off and there is nothing to fight about can finish shortly after day sixty.
A contested case is a different animal. Once discovery, temporary orders, and mediation are in the picture, six to twelve months is realistic, and cases with a business, a custody evaluation, or a genuine property fight run longer. Williamson County judges want to see mediation before they will set a final trial, so budget for that step rather than treating it as optional.
On cost, the honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on how much the two of you disagree. The court fees are fixed and modest. Attorney time is not. Two spouses who can settle the house and the parenting schedule between them will spend a fraction of what two spouses who litigate every issue will spend. We would rather tell you that plainly at the first meeting than hand you a number that means nothing.
Where settlement is realistic, we push for it. Where it is not, we are prepared to try the case. Our uncontested divorce page covers what qualifies, and our child custody page covers the issues that most often keep a case from settling.
Custody, Support, and Property for Leander Parents
Most Leander divorces with children turn on two questions: who makes the decisions, and where do the kids sleep. Texas separates those. Conservatorship covers the decision rights over school, medical care, and psychiatric treatment. Possession and access is the calendar. A parent can share full decision-making and still have the smaller share of the nights.
Texas Family Code section 153.131(b) starts every case with a presumption that both parents should be joint managing conservators. That presumption can be rebutted, but the burden is on the parent asking the court to depart from it.
The default calendar is the Standard Possession Order. Under section 153.3171, a parent who lives within fifty miles of the child can elect the expanded version, which converts Thursday evenings into overnights and stretches weekends from Friday after school to Monday morning. For a Leander parent whose ex stays in Cedar Park, Liberty Hill, Round Rock, or north Austin, that fifty mile line is almost always satisfied, and the expanded order is worth asking for.
Child support runs off statutory percentages of net resources under section 154.125, capped at the guideline ceiling the Attorney General adjusts every six years. On the property side, Texas is a community property state, and the court divides the community estate in a manner it finds just and right. That is not automatically fifty-fifty.
Leander’s growth curve matters here in a way it does not in older neighborhoods. A house bought in Crystal Falls or Mason Hills a decade ago may carry six figures of equity that did not exist at closing. Sorting out what part of that is community and what part traces to a separate-property down payment is real work, and it is worth doing carefully rather than splitting the difference to be done with it.
Parenting Schedules Built Around a Leander Commute
A parenting schedule that ignores how Leander families actually live falls apart within a semester. A parent who drives to downtown Austin or the Domain leaves early and gets back late. A parent working in Cedar Park or Liberty Hill has a very different Thursday. The standard exchange time of six in the evening is fine on paper and unworkable for one of those two households.
We write schedules that name the exchange point and the time, account for Leander ISD calendars including the early-release days, and say plainly who handles the drive. Where the fifty mile rule under section 153.3171 applies, we ask for the expanded standard order so the Thursday becomes an overnight instead of a rushed dinner.
Under section 153.009, a judge in a nonjury case must interview a child twelve or older in chambers if either parent asks. That interview is not a vote, and a child does not choose which parent to live with. It is one input among many, and we prepare parents honestly for what it does and does not accomplish.
What Child Support Covers, and What It Does Not
Guideline support under section 154.125 is a percentage of the paying parent’s monthly net resources: twenty percent for one child, twenty-five for two, thirty for three, and up from there. Net resources are not take-home pay. They start from all income, then subtract federal tax at the single-filer rate, Social Security, union dues, and the cost of the children’s health and dental coverage.
The percentage applies only up to a statutory cap on net resources, which the Attorney General adjusts every six years. Income above that cap does not automatically generate more support. A parent who wants a higher number has to prove the children’s proven needs under section 154.126.
Support is separate from medical and dental support, which the court orders on top of it. It also does not cover college, extracurriculars, or a car at sixteen. Leander parents routinely assume those are baked in. They are not, and if you want them addressed, they have to be written into the decree. Our child support page goes deeper on how the numbers are built.
The House, the Retirement Accounts, and the Debt
Texas presumes that everything either spouse holds at divorce is community property. Rebutting that presumption for a specific asset takes clear and convincing evidence, which usually means tracing it back to an inheritance, a gift, or something owned before the marriage. Verbal history does not carry that burden. Statements do.
The house is the biggest item in most Leander divorces. If one spouse keeps it, the other typically comes off the mortgage through a refinance and gets bought out of the equity, often with an owelty lien securing the payment. That step gets skipped more often than it should, and the spouse who leaves stays liable on a loan for a house they no longer own.
Retirement accounts split by a qualified domestic relations order, a separate order the plan administrator has to approve. A decree that says the 401(k) is divided but is never followed by a QDRO leaves the money exactly where it was. Debt gets divided too, and a divorce decree does not bind a credit card company. If a joint card stays open in both names, both names stay on the hook regardless of what the decree assigns.
Working With a Leander Divorce Lawyer at SMB Law, PC
Shane M. Boasberg founded SMB Law, PC in Austin and has practiced Texas family law for more than two decades. He was selected to Texas Monthly Rising Stars in 2012 and again from 2014 through 2016. He is a member of the Austin Bar Association and appears regularly in the family courts of Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties, including the Georgetown bench where a Leander divorce lawyer takes these cases.
That last part matters more than most people expect. Local practice is not a marketing line. It is knowing that a Williamson County filing gets bounced without the standing order attached, knowing which associate judge hears the temporary orders docket, and knowing what a given court will and will not do on a Tuesday morning.
You Get the Attorney You Hired
At a larger firm, the attorney who takes the consultation is often not the one who ends up at the hearing. That is not how this office works. Shane Boasberg handles the case he is hired for, from the first meeting through the final decree, and Leander clients deal with him directly rather than routing every question through staff.
Practically, that means you get a straight answer on the phone instead of a callback three days later, and the person arguing your temporary orders already knows why the exchange time matters to your schedule.
Straight Answers About Likely Outcomes
A lawyer who tells you everything is winnable is selling you something. We would rather tell a Leander client early that the schedule they want is a stretch in front of this particular judge, or that the separate-property claim on the down payment will not survive without the closing statement, than take the retainer and deliver the news in month eight.
Every case gets an honest read on what the law supports, what the evidence supports, and what it will cost to chase the gap between the two. Then the decision is yours.
Familiarity With the Georgetown Family Courts
Williamson County family cases are heard at the Justice Center in Georgetown, and the county runs its family docket differently from Travis County next door. Different standing order, different expectations on mediation, different attachment requirements at filing, different associate judges.
A Leander client is better served by an attorney who already knows those differences than by one who applies Travis County habits twenty miles north and finds out the hard way. We handle divorce, custody, support, and modifications in Williamson County on a regular basis.
Changing a Leander Custody or Support Order
This is the piece almost nobody gets right. The Williamson County standing order applies to original suits. It does not apply to a modification. If you are asking the Georgetown court to change an existing custody or support order, none of those automatic protections attach when you file, and nothing stops the other parent from doing what the standing order would otherwise have prevented.
Travis County handles this differently, which is why a Leander parent who reads an Austin law firm page walks in with the wrong expectation. If you need protection during a modification in Williamson County, it has to be requested. It will not appear on its own.
The standard for changing conservatorship or possession under section 156.101 is a material and substantial change in circumstances plus a showing that the change is in the child’s best interest. A job move, a remarriage, a new school district, or a schedule that stopped working as the kids got older can all qualify. Wanting a different outcome than the one you agreed to does not.
Getting to the Georgetown Courthouse
The Williamson County Justice Center sits at 405 M.L.K. Street in Georgetown. From Leander, take 183A north to Highway 29 and head east into Georgetown, or run US-183 up through Liberty Hill. Either way it is roughly twenty minutes without traffic and closer to thirty-five on a weekday morning.
Build in time for the security line and for parking, which fills up on heavy docket days. Being late to a hearing in Georgetown is not a neutral event, and judges here notice. If you have never been to the building, we tell clients where to park and where to meet us before the first setting rather than letting them figure it out at 8:45 in the morning.
Contact Our Leander Divorce Law Firm
The first call is a conversation, not a commitment. Bring what you have and we will tell you what a Leander divorce lawyer would actually do with it, including the parts you may not want to hear. Reach SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003.
More ways we help Leander families: contested divorce, uncontested divorce, child custody, car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, and wrongful death.
A Leander divorce is a Williamson County case, and Williamson County runs on its own rules. The standing order binds you the day you file and reaches things most people never think about, including the family location app on your phone. It does not follow you into a modification. The filing fee is the same with children or without. The courthouse is in Georgetown, not Austin. Knowing those four things before you file is the difference between a case that starts cleanly and one that starts with a rejected petition and a lost week, and that is where we begin with every Leander client who calls.
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Straight Answers to Common Divorce Questions
Can I file in Williamson County if my spouse moved out of Texas?
Usually yes. Under Texas Family Code section 6.301, the residency requirement is satisfied if either spouse has lived in Texas six months and in Williamson County ninety days. If you meet it from Leander, your spouse living in Colorado does not stop the filing. Whether a Texas court can also divide property your spouse holds or order support from them is a separate question governed by section 6.305, and it turns on that spouse’s past connections to Texas. Those are two different issues, and they get analyzed separately.
Do both of us have to appear in court to finish an agreed divorce?
No. In an agreed case only one spouse has to appear for the short hearing where the judge takes testimony and signs the decree. The other spouse signs the decree and, where appropriate, a waiver of service, and never sets foot in the Justice Center. Some Williamson County courts will also take that testimony by written affidavit instead of in person, which spares a Leander client the drive to Georgetown entirely. Practice varies by court and by judge, so we confirm what your specific court will accept before we set anything.
What if my spouse refuses to sign anything?
Texas does not require both spouses to agree to a divorce. One spouse can obtain one over the other’s objection. If your spouse is served and simply never files an answer, the case can proceed by default once the answer deadline passes and the sixty day waiting period has run. If your spouse answers but stonewalls, the case moves through temporary orders, discovery, and mediation on the court’s schedule rather than theirs, and a judge decides what they would not. Refusing to participate delays a case. It does not prevent one.
Can I change my name back as part of the divorce?
Yes, and it is far easier to do it now than later. Texas Family Code section 6.706 directs the court to restore a party’s prior name on request in the divorce itself. Ask for it in the petition and the decree carries the change, which is all the Social Security Administration, the DMV, and your bank will need. Skip it and you are looking at a separate name change suit with its own filing fee and its own hearing. It costs nothing to include and it is the single most commonly forgotten item in an otherwise finished decree.
Will we have to go to mediation in Williamson County?
If your case is contested, plan on it. Williamson County judges generally want the parties to have mediated before they will give you a final trial setting, and Texas Family Code section 153.0071 gives them the authority to send you. A mediated settlement agreement that meets the statute’s requirements is binding, and neither side can back out of it the next morning. That cuts both ways, which is why it is worth walking into mediation prepared rather than treating it as a box to check. A truly agreed uncontested divorce generally skips mediation altogether.
SMB Law, PC Practice Areas in Leander
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