Woods, May & Matlock,P.C.

When it comes to divorce and family law attorneys McKinney TX, you’ll find options, but choosing an experienced lawyer from the start will help you succeed. Woods & Matlock is a family law firm with the experience and dedication you need to get the best terms possible in a divorce and child custody case.

Follow the second part of Catherine’s journey through divorce and child custody in North Texas. In part one, we introduced her situation as a mother of two and stay at home mom, see how she responds to her husband’s request for a divorce with the help of an experienced lawyer on her team.

From Overwhelmed To On A Path

Catherine needed to keep the ball in her court starting at the beginning of her divorce. It felt like a sudden rapid panic at first, so meeting with a lawyer helped her get the first steps figured out. Her husband filed the initial papers, where you must cite a reason for getting a divorce.

“Insupportability” meant a “no-fault divorce” where neither party was at fault, they just had differences that couldn’t be overcome. Catherine needed to file a response and then prepare for splitting up property and assets. After meeting with us, she started to see how getting a divorce held promise for a happier life, omitting all the fighting and suffocating feelings brought by her marriage. We started the case by getting the facts down and going over what to expect.

Knowing Your Assets Matters

Leaving her first meeting, Catherine had a mission to write a list of all known assets, meaning all property, debts, credit cards, investments, bank accounts, and possessions she and her husband got as a couple. Texas is a community property state, so the court will seek a fair division of everything they owned as a couple.

Wedding gifts such as money to both of them as a couple counted, while a gift to her from her parents was solely her asset to keep. Her first job was to get everything documented early on to be proactive in case her husband decided to hide anything. Even in an amicable divorce where both parties want to divorce and work together on negotiations, people can hide actions behind the scenes or suddenly act irrationally and selfishly, so it’s best to be prepared.

Planning For Negotiations

Knowing she had a full list of the family property, Catherine was given the starting point everyone going through a divorce needs. From here we started going over her thoughts on these questions – what did she want and need to keep? What was “fair” in her mind and did she think her husband would agree or seek more than his share? What would be negotiating tools to help get an agreement between Catherine and her husband? To finalize a divorce, you need to have a plan for dividing assets from experienced divorce and family law attorneys McKinney TX. Because the state’s approach is a “fair split”, you need an attorney to leverage through the details of community property law. 

Find out how Catherine’s first negotiations went by reading our next blog post. Remember, if you need divorce and family law attorneys McKinney TX, Woods & Matlock offers a caring and responsive choice. Call us for a free breif phone consultation today at 972-972-8820.