Round Rock Divorce Lawyer | Filed in Williamson County, Heard in Georgetown
Facing a divorce in Round Rock? 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 Round Rock families, and we know the local rules that decide how your case starts.
What Our Clients Say
Key Takeaway
- A Round Rock 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 at the Travis County courthouse in Austin.
- 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.
Round Rock Divorce Attorneys for Williamson County Families
Round Rock has roughly 130,000 residents and keeps growing, and most of the divorces we handle here share a shape: a house bought before prices ran up, a retirement account or company stock from an employer along the tech corridor, and a parenting plan that has to work across Round Rock ISD and Leander ISD calendars. Those are all solvable. What causes real trouble is not knowing how the county you file in changes the way your case begins.
We handle divorce, custody, and support for families here, and we appear in the Georgetown courts where these cases are actually decided. If you want the statewide picture first, our divorce lawyer overview covers Texas law generally. This page covers what is specific to Round Rock.
Where a Round Rock Divorce Is Actually Filed
Round Rock 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. That is about twenty minutes up I-35. It is not filed in Austin, and the Travis County procedures you may have read about somewhere else do not apply to you.
Attorneys have been required to file electronically through eFileTexas since July 1, 2014, so nothing gets walked to a counter anymore. 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 that children cost more to file. They do not. Add $8 for each citation the clerk issues, and $70 if you have the clerk serve your spouse by certified mail. A constable charges separately for personal service.
The Williamson County Standing Order
Here is the part that catches people off guard. The moment a divorce or an original custody suit is filed in Williamson County, a court order is already in force against both spouses. It is the Williamson County Standing Order Regarding Children, Property, and Conduct of the Parties, and it has applied to every such case filed since November 1, 2023.
Nobody has to ask for it. It operates as a temporary restraining order for fourteen days, and if neither spouse contests it at a hearing in that window it hardens into a temporary injunction lasting until the judge signs a final order. It is enforceable by contempt.
What it stops, in plain terms: taking the children out of Texas, pulling them out of school, or hiding them. Selling, hiding, or borrowing against property. Draining a checking or retirement account. Running up debt. Canceling a credit card in your spouse’s name. Changing the beneficiary on a life insurance policy, or canceling health or auto coverage on your spouse or your kids. Shutting off the electricity, water, or internet at the house your spouse is living in.
It also has a section written for the way people actually behave now. You may not read your spouse’s email or bank account with a saved password, record their calls, or track them, and the order names tracking apps and tracking devices specifically, along with simply following someone around.
One procedural trap worth knowing: the petition has to have the standing order physically attached to it. If it is missing, the clerk sends the filing back. Someone filing without a lawyer gets a pass on that. A represented filer does not.
The Modification Gap Round Rock Parents Miss
The Williamson County standing order says, in its own words, that it does not apply to modifications of existing final orders. That is a real difference, and almost nobody mentions it.
If you already have a final custody or support order and you file to change it, none of the automatic protections above attach to your case. No fourteen-day restraining order. No injunction. File that identical modification across the county line in Travis County and the Travis standing order does cover it, because that one was written to include modification cases.
The practical consequence: in a Williamson County modification where you are worried about the other parent moving the child, emptying an account, or dropping insurance, you have to ask the court for a temporary restraining order yourself, and you have to give the judge specific facts to support it. Assuming you are already protected is the mistake.
Property, Custody, and Support in a Round Rock Divorce
Texas is a community property state. What the two of you built during the marriage is generally divided; what you owned before it usually is not. The court divides community property in a way it considers just and right, and that phrase does not mean fifty-fifty. Judges depart from an even split for reasons like earning capacity, fault, and who will have the children most of the time.
In Round Rock the argument is usually about the same three things: equity in a house in Teravista, Forest Creek, or Behrens Ranch that has appreciated hard since it was bought, a retirement account or restricted stock from an employer along the tech corridor, and who the children live with during the school week.
Dividing the House and the Retirement Accounts
Home equity is the asset Round Rock couples misjudge most often, in both directions. A house bought in 2015 and a house bought in 2022 are in completely different positions, and the answer to keep it or sell it usually comes down to whether one spouse can refinance alone. Wanting the house and being able to carry it are two separate questions.
Retirement and stock are what people forget to value properly. A 401(k), a pension, vested and unvested shares, and a brokerage account are not interchangeable, and dividing a retirement plan takes a separate court order entered after the divorce is final. That order is easy to overlook in an agreed case and expensive to fix two years later.
Custody and Possession Schedules
Texas presumes both parents should be joint managing conservators, and it presumes the standard possession order is the minimum a parent gets. Joint conservatorship settles who holds the rights and duties of a parent. It does not mean equal time, and one parent is still named to decide where the child lives.
There is a rule here worth checking before you agree to any schedule. If you live fifty miles or less from your child’s primary residence, the court is required to give you the expanded schedule automatically, which runs weekends from school dismissal Friday to school resumption Monday rather than six to six. Most Round Rock parents who stay in the area qualify without ever being told.
Schedules here also have to survive two school calendars, because Round Rock is split between Round Rock ISD and Leander ISD and those calendars do not always line up.
Child Support in Williamson County
Texas child support runs on 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. Those percentages apply to the first $11,700 of net resources, and that figure is published by the Attorney General rather than written into the Family Code, which is why it changes.
Above the cap a court can order more, but only on the proven needs of the child. Below $1,000 a month, a separate and lower schedule applies. One thing worth saying plainly: support and possession are independent. Missing a payment does not cost you your weekend, and being denied your weekend does not excuse a payment.
Mediation and Settling Before Trial
Most Williamson County divorces settle. The county’s local rules ask the parties to certify in writing, seven days before a setting, that a settlement conference has been held, and the standing order encourages mediation without making it mandatory.
That is a lighter touch than Travis County, whose local rules automatically refer contested family cases set for trial to mediation. Either way, both counties expect a real attempt before a judge hears the case. A mediated settlement agreement that meets the statute is binding the moment it is signed, so go in prepared and with the numbers already worked out. You do not get to reconsider it over the weekend.
Working With a Round Rock Divorce Lawyer
Shane M. Boasberg has practiced Texas family law for more than two decades and was named a Texas Monthly Rising Star in 2012 and 2014 through 2016. Our office is in downtown Austin, about twenty minutes from the Georgetown courthouse, and we appear in the Williamson County courts regularly.
The most useful thing a lawyer does early is tell you which fights are worth having. Most are not. Below are the questions Round Rock clients ask us first.
How Long It Takes, and What Drives That
The floor is sixty days. Texas does not let a judge grant a divorce until sixty days after the petition is filed, with narrow exceptions in family violence cases. That is the fastest an agreed divorce can finish, and most agreed cases land a few weeks past it.
Contested cases take longer, and the length depends on two things more than anything else: how complete the financial disclosure is, and how much is genuinely in dispute rather than being fought over on principle. Anyone who quotes you a firm date before reading your file is guessing.
What a Round Rock Divorce Actually Costs
The court’s filing fee is $350, the same with or without children. Each citation the clerk issues is $8, and service by the clerk’s certified mail is $70. A constable charges its own fee for personal service.
Attorney’s fees are the real variable, and they track conflict rather than complexity. An agreed divorce costs a fraction of a contested one. The single largest driver of what a Round Rock divorce costs is how much the two spouses fight, which is one of the few parts of this you can still control.
Getting to the Georgetown Courthouse
Expect to make the drive at least once. Your case is assigned to a Williamson County court sitting at the Justice Center on M.L.K. Street in Georgetown, and contested hearings happen there. Agreed divorces need very little courtroom time, and some matters are decided on written submission with nobody appearing at all.
Family cases in Williamson County are spread across several district courts and the county courts at law, and yours is assigned when it is filed. One rule is worth knowing in advance: if you are modifying an existing order, the case goes back to the court that issued it rather than being reassigned. That court already knows your file, for better or worse.
Talk to a Round Rock Divorce Lawyer
If you are thinking about filing, or you have just been served, the conversation worth having is the one before you make any decision about the house, the accounts, or the children. We will tell you where you actually stand and what the next ninety days look like.
Call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003 for a free, confidential consultation with a Round Rock divorce lawyer. We represent clients in Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, and the surrounding Williamson County communities.
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Round Rock Divorce Questions We Hear Most
Can I file my Round Rock divorce in Austin instead?
No. Venue follows where you live, so a Round Rock resident files in Williamson County and the case is heard in Georgetown. A petition filed in the wrong county can be transferred or dismissed, which costs you weeks. The one address genuinely worth double-checking is a Pflugerville one, because that city sits on both sides of the Travis and Williamson county line.
Do both of us have to live in Williamson County to file here?
No. Only one spouse has to meet the residency test: six months in Texas and ninety days in Williamson County. If you live in Round Rock and your spouse has already moved to Austin, or out of state entirely, you can still file here. Where the other spouse lives can affect service and sometimes which court has authority over property, so mention it at the first meeting.
What happens if my spouse empties an account after I file?
That violates the Williamson County standing order, which is already in force from the day of filing and is enforceable by contempt. Save the statements, note the date you found out, and tell your divorce lawyer quickly. The value of an automatic order is that you do not have to prove the conduct was improper on top of proving it happened. It already is.
Do I still need a lawyer if we agree on everything?
Probably, and for a narrower reason than you would expect. An agreed uncontested divorce is the cheapest path, but the decree still has to be clear enough for a Williamson County judge to sign and specific enough to enforce years later. The two things most often botched in agreed decrees are the order dividing a retirement account and the language describing possession. Both are cheap to draft correctly now and expensive to fix later.
Which Williamson County court will hear my case?
Williamson County spreads family cases across several district courts and the county courts at law, and the assignment happens when you file rather than being something you choose. If you are filing a modification instead of an original case, it returns to the court that signed the order you are trying to change. Most Round Rock cases settle before a judge ever weighs in, but if yours does not, our contested divorce team tries them in Georgetown.
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