Child Custody Lawyer in The Woodlands and Conroe, TX
Most parents who call us about custody are not really asking a legal question. They are asking whether they will keep seeing their kids: the school mornings, the Tuesday exchanges, the bedtime call. If you are looking for a child custody lawyer in The Woodlands or Conroe, start with what a Texas judge actually decides, because it is rarely as all-or-nothing as parents fear.
Two recent changes matter more than anything else on this page. A change to Texas law that took effect September 1, 2025 wrote a fit-parent presumption into the best-interest statute. And since September 1, 2021, parents living 50 miles or fewer apart get the expanded possession schedule automatically, whether or not they ask. Griffin & Cain, Attorneys at Law, PC handles conservatorship and possession cases across Montgomery County as part of our family law practice, and we will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us.
Custody, Conservatorship, and the Words in Your Order
Texas statutes never use the word custody. What you mean by custody, Texas calls conservatorship: the rights and duties that determine who makes decisions for your child and where your child lives. Visitation is possession and access. We use the everyday words here; your order will use the legal ones. The rules are the same inside a Texas divorce or in a separate suit between parents who never married.
What the Judge Is Actually Deciding
Every custody ruling in Texas runs through one question: what is in the best interest of your child? Texas policy fills in what that means: frequent and continuing contact with parents who act in the child's best interest, a safe and stable home, and parents who keep sharing parenting duties after they separate.
The statute never defines best interest. Judges work from factors the Texas Supreme Court laid out decades ago, a list the Court itself called "by no means exhaustive": your child's desires and needs, any danger to the child, each parent's abilities and plans, and the stability of each home. Everything between filing and final orders is potential evidence: a risk if you behave badly, an advantage if you are the parent doing the packing, the driving and the homework.
The 2025 Change: Parents Come Before Nonparents
Effective September 1, 2025, Texas Family Code § 153.002 was rewritten to add a fit-parent presumption. In a custody suit between a parent and a nonparent, the court now starts from the presumption that a parent acts in the child's best interest and that a child belongs in a parent's care, custody and control. A nonparent can overcome that only with clear and convincing evidence that denying what they seek would significantly impair the child's physical health or emotional development, and a judge who rules for the nonparent anyway must spell out the specific supporting facts in the order. If a grandparent or other relative is seeking custody or time with your child, or you are that relative, this presumption now frames the case; start with our grandparent rights page.
Joint Custody Does Not Mean 50/50
The most misunderstood point in Texas custody law: joint managing conservatorship divides decision-making rights. It says nothing about how many nights your child sleeps at your house. The schedule is a separate part of the order, and even in a joint conservatorship one parent holds the exclusive right to determine the child's primary residence, because some address has to govern school enrollment. Parents who "got joint custody" and then find a first, third and fifth weekend schedule were not cheated; they were told the wrong thing about the label. Equal time exists, but only as a negotiated or ordered schedule.
Texas presumes joint managing conservatorship is in your child's best interest unless there is a history of family violence. Without an agreed parenting plan, the judge weighs whether you can share decisions and put the child first, whether each of you encourages the other's relationship with the child, who did the child-rearing before filing, how close you live, and the residence preference of a child 12 or older.
Both parents keep core rights at all times unless a court limits them: the child's medical and school records, conferring with doctors and teachers, school activities, emergency contact status and consent to emergency treatment. Each parent also owes the other timely notice of significant information about the child's health, education and welfare; failing that duty is a Class C misdemeanor, not a suggestion.
A sole managing conservator holds the biggest calls alone: primary residence, invasive medical and psychiatric consent, education decisions, receiving child support and, under another change effective September 1, 2025, the child's passport.
The Possession Schedule: What Your Weeks Will Look Like
Texas treats the standard possession order as a parent's reasonable minimum, a floor rather than a ceiling. Within 100 miles, the rhythm is first, third and fifth weekends, a Thursday evening during the school term, 30 days of summer, and alternating holidays, with Christmas and Thanksgiving trading off by even and odd years. A parent more than 100 miles away trades the weekly rhythm for one weekend a month of that parent's choosing, spring break every year and 42 days of summer.
Live Within 50 Miles? The Expanded Schedule Is Automatic
This is the rule other websites most often describe backwards. Under Texas Family Code § 153.3171, if you live 50 miles or fewer from your child's primary residence, the court shall order the expanded schedule: weekends run from Friday school dismissal until school resumes Monday morning, and the Thursday evening becomes an overnight. You do not have to ask. It is opt-out, not opt-in, with three exits: you decline in writing or on the record, the court is restricting possession because of family violence, or the court finds the expanded times are not in your child's best interest, for example because you rarely exercised your rights before filing or the distance makes them unworkable.
Between 50 and 100 miles, nothing is automatic: you must ask, in writing or on the record in open court, before the order is signed, and the court grants it unless that is not in your child's best interest. Past 100 miles, the expanded weekend schedule is off the table, though holiday beginning and ending times can still be adjusted. For a child under three, the court builds an age-appropriate schedule around caregiving history, routine and attachments, with a step-up order at the third birthday.
If a proposed order is in front of you and you live within 50 miles of your child's other home, do not sign away time the law gives you automatically. Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 and let us read the schedule first.
When Family Violence Is Part of the Case
Family violence changes everything above. The court must consider evidence of physical or sexual abuse within the two years before filing or during the case, and credible evidence of a history or pattern of child neglect or abuse takes joint managing conservatorship off the table. A court that finds such a history can deny possession and access entirely, or allow it only with protections such as supervised visitation, protected exchanges, no alcohol or drugs, and a battering intervention program. Where credible evidence shows abuse by a parent or by anyone living in that parent's household, unsupervised visitation is presumed not to be in the child's best interest. We handle both sides, protecting a child and answering allegations; either way documents beat accounts, so start gathering yours and see our domestic violence page.
The Age-12 Myth
No, your 12-year-old does not get to choose. The law is narrower: in a case decided by a judge rather than a jury, the judge must, if a parent asks, interview a child 12 or older in chambers about where the child will primarily live. It is an interview, not a vote, and it does not diminish the court's discretion. In our experience, a child's voice carries most weight when it matches everything else in the case; coached answers cost more than they gain.
Geographic Restrictions and Moving Away
Texas has no relocation statute: no notice-of-intent-to-move requirement, no mileage trigger, no automatic outcome. What controls is your own order, which for joint conservators either restricts the child's primary residence to a defined geographic area or says residence may be set anywhere. The Texas Supreme Court has rejected bright-line relocation rules in favor of a fact-specific look at the child's best interest, so a move-away case is built from specifics: the schools, the family on each end, the other parent's time. Before you accept an offer or sign a lease, read your restriction; if one applies, pursue a modification of the order before you move, not after. One wrinkle: a jury can decide who holds the primary-residence right and whether it is fenced in, but only the judge sets the possession calendar.
Worried About Custody?
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We will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us. Get started by calling us or contacting us via email, and we will respond as soon as possible.
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Our last review post was a year ago; Brian has continued to provide excellent work and advice on legal matters.
The Mistakes We Correct Most Often
- Withholding the kids over unpaid child support. Texas law flatly forbids conditioning possession or access on payment of support. The parent who withholds usually ends up defending an enforcement action instead of winning one; unpaid child support is its own filing.
- Assuming joint custody means equal time. Read the possession schedule, not the label.
- Assuming a 12-year-old decides. The child gets an interview. The judge keeps the decision.
- Moving before there is an order, or without reading the one you have. The geographic restriction does not care about your new lease.
- Texting and posting for an audience of one. Write every message as if a Montgomery County judge will read it aloud, because one may.
If one of these has already happened in your case, the next move matters more than the last one. Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 before it hardens into a court record. We take these cases from the first phone call, in the Montgomery County courts where yours will land.
Child Custody Cases in Montgomery County
Family cases here go to one of three courts: the 410th District Court, the 418th District Court, or County Court at Law No. 3. State law directs the 418th to give preference to family law matters, and the 410th functions as a family court in practice. The practical effect: both family district courts order parents to mediation before any temporary orders hearing. If mediation fails, the hearing is short: the 418th caps a contested child residence hearing at three hours divided equally, and the 410th generally allows one hour per side. Ninety minutes is not much time to prove a custody case, which is why we treat mediation as the main event and prepare for it like trial.
A few practicalities: cases with children under 18 filed in the 418th require a Parent Education and Family Stabilization course certificate, the county keeps a registry of approved providers, some courts will not accept online versions, filings go to the District Clerk at 301 N. Main in Conroe, and attorneys must e-file. None of it is hard, but all of it goes smoother when your child custody lawyer already knows these courts' standing orders and rhythms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can my 12-year-old choose which parent to live with?
No. Once your child turns 12, the judge must interview them in chambers if a parent asks, but it is an interview, not a vote. The judge listens, then still decides based on the child's best interest.
Does joint custody mean 50/50 time in Texas?
No. Joint managing conservatorship divides decision-making rights, not nights; the schedule is a separate part of the order, and even joint conservators name one parent to determine the child's primary residence. Equal time is possible, but only as a negotiated or ordered schedule.
Can I stop visitation if my ex is not paying child support?
No, and trying it can cost you. Texas law does not allow visitation to be conditioned on child support, so withholding the kids puts you on the defensive in court. Enforce the support order through the court instead.
Can I move out of state with my child?
That depends on your order, not on a general rule. Texas has no relocation statute, so the controlling language is the geographic restriction in your decree, if there is one. If a restriction applies, you need a modification before you move, not after.
What is the expanded standard possession order, and do I have to ask for it?
It stretches standard weekends from Friday school dismissal to Monday morning and adds a Thursday overnight. If you live 50 miles or fewer from your child's primary home, the court orders it automatically unless you decline it or an exception applies. Between 50 and 100 miles, you must ask for it before the order is signed.
What rights do I have when the kids are not with me?
More than most parents realize. Unless a court limits them, you keep the right to your child's medical and school records, to confer with doctors and teachers, to attend school activities, to be an emergency contact and to consent to emergency treatment. Each parent also must keep the other informed about the child's health, education and welfare.
Talk to a Conroe Child Custody Attorney
Custody cases turn on preparation: the records you kept, the calendar you can prove, the schedule you propose and the reasons behind it. Brian Cain, a member of the Montgomery County Bar Association, and Marissa Garcia represent parents across Conroe, The Woodlands, Magnolia, Montgomery, Willis and Spring, and Robert Griffin brings mediation training from the A.A. White Dispute Resolution Center at the University of Houston Law Center to cases that can settle before a hearing. You do not need the loudest child custody lawyer in Montgomery County. You need the most prepared one.
Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 or contact Griffin & Cain at 400 W. Davis St., Suite 200, Conroe, TX 77301 to schedule a complimentary consultation. Bring your questions and whatever paperwork you have; we will take it from there.
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We're Available to Speak With You
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Contact Our Office
Today
We will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us. Get started by calling us or contacting us via email, and we will respond as soon as possible.
Phone:
936-539-1011
Address:
400 W. Davis St., Suite 200. Conroe, TX. 77301