Dallas County Uncontested Divorce Law Blog

For many Texas families, child support plays an important role in paying for food, clothing, health care and other things that kids need. When custodial parents do not receive the child support they are owed, the Texas Attorney General's office typically gets involved.

Attorney General Greg Abbot is quick to take credit for the fact that "the child support division has been elevated to the number one national ranking" while he has held the office. That ranking is based on the amount of child support a state collects compared to the amount it spends tracking that money down.

A recent piece in the Longview News-Journal discusses the outcome of a pilot Texas program that is meant to increase the amount of due child custody that gets paid to families in the state. The study reminds us that it is not always about whether the noncustodial parent wants to or does not want to pay a specific amount of child support.

Sometimes, especially in this economy, parents simply just cannot afford to pay what is necessary to support their children.

The introduction of this Texas program offers a glimmer of hope in regards to that frustrating fact. If the results of the study are valid, then a wider application of the Noncustodial Parent Choices Program in Texas would mean big, positive changes for families and the state's legal system.

On Monday, Aug. 23, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren's marriage was officially over. It has been about nine months coming, considering the various stories of infidelity on the part of the legendary golfer that began leaking last November.

For some time, it did look as though the high-profile couple was trying to work out their marriage, possibly for the sake of their two young children. But apparently the scandal was too great for the couple to survive, and they agreed that divorce was the best option for their family.

Though Wood's alleged trysts stayed anything but private, the couple has managed to keep the details of their uncontested divorce quite secret. This is what the public knows:

One of the top reasons why unhappy spouses avoid divorce is because they are terrified that the divorce process will leave them broke. But according to legal sources, that is not true, and couples can take control of their divorce process in order to get out of the marriage with money to start separate futures.

Of course, how much a divorce costs depends on various factors. The laws of your state might play a role in the divorce process, including child support and division of assets. But overall, couples can make their divorce work for them, meaning a marriage can end in an uncontested divorce that involves amicable, respectful interactions with a constant focus on creating a fair agreement.

A young couple notorious for scandals and disagreements has managed to come to an uncontested child custody agreement. Bristol Palin, 19, and Levi Johnston, 20, found the responsibility within themselves to civilly handle the family law agreements regarding the best interest of their toddler Tripp Palin.

It was a mere month ago when we posted a story asking whether the then reconciled Alaskan couple was headed for divorce. Since then, however, they have already cancelled marriage plans due to suspicions that Johnston may have fathered another child with another young woman.

Though they never got married and never will face the divorce that the public predicted would follow, it does not take divorce in order for parents to be faced with child custody, child visitation and child support decisions, which are often not easy to make.

A recent essay in The Dallas Morning News discusses a trend regarding women and marriage: They don't want nor need a husband.

Women who are not even married to obviously obnoxious, abusive, unfaithful, mean or inconsiderate men are still backing away from the life-long commitment of marriage they made years or decades ago. Some women put an official end to their marriages by filing for divorce, but many women are merely separating themselves from their married lives.

The ideas that men most commonly find it difficult to succeed in marriage and that they are the ones, therefore, who request a divorce can be disregarded these days as uneducated stereotypes. According to 2004 research, out of a surveyed group of divorcees 40 years old and older, more than 60 percent of their divorces were initiated by the wives.

Whether a marriage has ended in divorce and the couple has come to an uncontested child custody agreement, those agreements are still challenged in a time of war. Many American men and women are currently employed by the military and facing the possibility of deployment on a daily basis.

When these courageous men and women are called to action and deployed to fight, a wake of family law confusions follow and leave families reevaluating what legal arrangement is in the best interest of their children.

In 2009, Texas Senate Bill 279 was enacted, which addresses the need of both military members and their families to create a stable family unit when a parent is deployed. The bill gives a Texas court temporary authority over family law issues like child custody and visitation.

It has been an ongoing child custody battle for Kristie Vowels, who refuses to give up on her parental rights to her daughter. The child she is fighting for is not Vowels' biological child. Vowels and her former partner Tracy Scourfield decided when they were still together that they would have a child together. Through artificial insemination, Scourfield was impregnated with and then gave birth to their daughter.

A mere year after becoming parents, Vowels and Scourfield split up. Scourfield had primary custody of the child, but she and Vowels had a then uncontested visitation agreement that allowed Vowels to see their daughter regularly.

Those visits were brought to a halt when Scourfield began keeping their daughter away from Vowels. Thus began Vowels' battle for her parental rights to be officially recognized by a Texas court.