Cedar Park Divorce Lawyer | Williamson County Courts in Georgetown
Facing a divorce in Cedar Park? 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 Cedar Park families, and we know the local rules that shape how your case begins.
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Key Takeaway
- A Cedar Park 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.
- 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.
Cedar Park Divorce Attorneys for Williamson County Families
Cedar Park is a city of roughly 80,000 in northwest Williamson County, and the divorces we handle here tend to look alike in one respect: the house has appreciated a great deal, a chunk of the marital estate sits in stock or retirement from an employer along the tech corridor, and the parenting schedule has to fit Leander ISD. None of that is unusual. What trips people up is not knowing how the county they file in changes the way the case starts.
We handle divorce, custody, and support for families here, and we appear in the Georgetown courts where Cedar Park cases are decided. Our divorce lawyer overview covers Texas law statewide. This page covers what is specific to Cedar Park.
Where a Cedar Park Divorce Is Actually Filed
Cedar Park 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 Cedar Park that is a straight run up 183A and then east. 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 that 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 Williamson County Standing Order
This 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 binding on 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 works as a temporary restraining order for fourteen days, and if neither spouse contests it at a hearing in that window it becomes a temporary injunction lasting until the judge signs a final order. It is enforceable by contempt.
What it stops: taking the children out of Texas, pulling them from school, or hiding them. Selling, hiding, or borrowing against property. Draining a checking or retirement account. Canceling a credit card in your spouse’s name. Changing a life insurance beneficiary, or dropping health or auto coverage on your spouse or your kids. Cutting off the utilities at the house your spouse is living in.
It also covers conduct that did not exist when older orders were written. You may not use a saved password to get into your spouse’s email or bank account, record their calls, or track them, and the order names tracking apps and tracking devices specifically, along with following someone in person.
A procedural trap worth knowing: the petition must have the standing order attached. If it is missing, the clerk returns the filing. Someone filing without a lawyer gets a pass. A represented filer does not.
The Modification Gap Cedar Park 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 genuine 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. No fourteen-day restraining order. No injunction. File that same 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.
What it means in practice: in a Cedar Park 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 support it with specific facts. Assuming you are already protected is the mistake.
Property, Custody, and Support in a Cedar Park 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 has the children most of the time.
In Cedar Park the argument is usually about three things: equity in a house in Buttercup Creek, Twin Creeks, or Ranch at Brushy Creek, equity compensation from a tech-corridor employer, and who the children live with during the school week.
Dividing the House and Equity Compensation
Home equity is the asset Cedar Park couples misjudge most often. A house bought in 2015 and one bought in 2022 are in very different positions, and whether to keep it usually comes down to whether one spouse can refinance alone. Wanting the house and being able to carry it are separate questions.
Equity compensation is where real money gets lost. Vested shares, unvested RSUs, and options all behave differently, and shares granted during the marriage but vesting after it are not automatically all yours or all theirs. Dividing a retirement plan also takes its own court order entered after the divorce is final, which is easy to overlook in an agreed case and expensive to fix 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.
One rule is worth checking before you agree to any schedule. If you live fifty miles or less from your child’s primary residence, the court must give you the expanded schedule automatically, which runs weekends from school dismissal Friday to school resumption Monday rather than six to six. Cedar Park parents who both stay in the area almost always qualify, and most are never told.
Cedar Park sits mostly in Leander ISD, so schedules here get built around one calendar rather than two. That makes exchanges simpler than in some neighboring cities.
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, lower schedule applies. Worth saying plainly: support and possession are independent. Missing a payment does not cost you your weekend, and a denied 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 requiring it.
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 worked out. There is no weekend to reconsider.
Working With a Cedar Park 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, and we appear in the Williamson County courts in Georgetown regularly.
The most useful thing a lawyer does early is tell you which fights are worth having. Most are not. Below are the questions Cedar Park clients ask 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 a firm date before reading your file is guessing.
What a Cedar Park 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 largest single driver of what a Cedar Park 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.
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: a modification goes back to the court that signed the order you are trying to change rather than being reassigned.
Talk to a Cedar Park 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 Cedar Park divorce lawyer. We represent clients in Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock, Georgetown, and the surrounding Williamson County communities.
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Cedar Park Divorce Questions We Hear Most
Can I file my Cedar Park divorce in Austin instead?
No. Venue follows where you live, so a Cedar Park 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. If your address is near the southern edge of the city, confirm which county you are actually in before anything is filed.
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 Cedar Park and your spouse has already moved to Austin, or out of state, you can still file here. Where the other spouse lives can affect service and sometimes which court has authority over property, so raise 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.
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 changing. Most Cedar Park cases settle before a judge weighs in, but if yours does not, our contested divorce team tries them in Georgetown.
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