Tarrant County · Board Certified in Family Law
Arlington Child Custody Attorney
Texas does not use the word custody. It uses conservatorship, possession and access — three separate questions that people collapse into one, and that courts decide separately.
Child Custody for Arlington Families
Arlington is the largest city between Dallas and Fort Worth, with cases heard in Tarrant County rather than Dallas County. For child custody purposes that matters in a specific way: a Arlington case is filed in Tarrant County, heard by Tarrant County judges, and governed by Tarrant County's local rules and standing orders.
The courthouse is at Tarrant County Family Law Center, 200 E. Weatherford St., Fort Worth, TX 76196. Families here are usually served by Arlington ISD, which is the practical anchor for school-calendar questions in a possession schedule — exchanges, spring break, and the start and end of the summer period all key off the district calendar rather than a generic date.
Possession schedules in Arlington are written around Arlington ISD. That sounds administrative until the first Christmas, when a decree that says "the day school recesses" and a district calendar that recesses on a Thursday produce two different answers than the parents expected. Getting the district's calendar into the order is worth the ten minutes it takes.
Tarrant County applies the same statutory framework as every other Texas county — the joint managing conservatorship presumption (Tex. Fam. Code § 153.131) and the standard possession order presumption (Tex. Fam. Code § 153.252). What varies locally is how a particular court handles temporary orders, and how fast it will hear an emergency.
Filing in Tarrant County. Texas requires that one spouse have lived in the county of filing for the 90 days before the petition (Tex. Fam. Code § 6.301), on top of six months' residency in the state. A recent move between Tarrant County and a neighbouring county can reset that 90-day clock even though nothing about the marriage changed.
Conservatorship is about decisions, not overnights
Conservatorship is the bundle of parental rights and duties: who decides on schooling, on non-emergency medical care, on psychiatric treatment, who can access records, who holds the right to determine the child's primary residence. Texas starts from a rebuttable presumption that naming both parents joint managing conservators is in the child's best interest (Tex. Fam. Code § 153.131).
Joint managing conservatorship does not mean equal time. It is common for parents to be joint managing conservators while one holds the exclusive right to determine primary residence and the other has a possession schedule. Parents who hear "joint" and assume "half" are frequently surprised, and that surprise is usually avoidable with a clear explanation early.
Best interest is the whole test
Every conservatorship and possession question in Texas runs through one standard: the best interest of the child is always the primary consideration (Tex. Fam. Code § 153.002). The public policy behind it is written into the code — frequent and continuing contact with parents who have shown they can act in the child's best interest, a safe and stable environment, and shared rights and duties after separation (Tex. Fam. Code § 153.001).
One provision the code makes explicit: a court may not condition a parent's right to possession or access on paying child support. Support and possession are separate obligations. Withholding a child over unpaid support is not self-help — it is a violation of the order.
Who Handles These Cases
Lisa G. Garza is Board Certified in Family Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and has practiced Texas family law for more than 30 years. The firm represents Arlington families from offices on the Dallas North Tollway and in McKinney, and appears in Tarrant County.