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The McLennan County District Courts' standing order (seventh amended) that applies automatically in every divorce and parent-child suit filed in McLennan County, protecting the children and the parties' property and governing the parties' conduct while the case is pending.
Applies automatically to both parties in every divorce and parent-child suit filed in the McLennan County District Courts. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
SEVENTH AMENDED MCLENNAN COUNTY STANDING ORDER REGARDING CHILDREN, PROPERTY AND CONDUCT OF THE PARTIES NO PARTY TO THIS LAWSUIT HAS REQUESTED THIS ORDER. Rather, this order is a Standing Order of the McLennan County District Courts that applies in every divorce suit and every suit affecting the parent-child relationship filed in McLennan County, except cases initiated by the Attorney General of Texas or Child Protective Services. The District Courts of McLennan County have adopted this order because the parties and their children should be protected and their property preserved while the lawsuit is pending before the Court. THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED: 1. NO DISRUPTION OF CHILDREN. All parties are ORDERED to refrain from doing the following acts concerning any children who are the subjects of this case: 1.1 Removing the children from the State of Texas for the purpose of changing the residence of the children or evading the jurisdiction of the court, acting directly or in concert with others, without the written agreement of the parties or an order of the court; provided, however, that this paragraph shall not prohibit or restrict a party from so removing the children if an active prior court order gives that party the right to designate the children's primary residence outside the State of Texas or without regard to geographic location. 1.2 Disrupting or withdrawing the children from the school or day-care facility where the children are presently enrolled, without the written agreement of both parents or an order of the court; provided, however, that this paragraph shall not prohibit or restrict a party from so withdrawing the children from a school or day-care facility if that party is changing the children's domicile or residence within that party's rights pursuant to an active prior court order as described in 1.1 above. 1.3 Hiding or secreting the children from the other parent. 1.4 Changing the children's current place of abode, without the written agreement of all parties or an order of the court; provided, however, that this paragraph shall not prohibit or restrict a party from changing such place of abode if an active prior court order gives that party the right to designate the children's primary residence without geographic restriction, or if the new place of abode lies within the geographic limits established by that active prior court order. 1.5 Disturbing the peace of the children. 1.6 Making disparaging remarks regarding any other party or any other party's family in the presence or within hearing of the child or children. 1.7 Discussing with the children, or with any other person in the presence of the children, any litigation related to the children or any other party. 2. CONDUCT OF THE PARTIES DURING THE CASE. All parties are ORDERED to refrain from doing the following acts: 2.1 Using vulgar, profane, obscene, or indecent language, in an offensive manner, while communicating with any other party, whether in person, by telephone, or in writing. (Including text messaging or electronic communications.) 2.2 Threatening any party, in person, by telephone, or in writing to take unlawful action against any person. 2.3 Placing one or more telephone calls, at an unreasonable hour, in an offensive or repetitious manner, without a legitimate purpose of communication or anonymously. 2.4 Opening, diverting, withholding, or interfering with the delivery of mail addressed to any other party. 2.5 Causing bodily injury to any other party or, if applicable, to a child of any party. 2.6 Unlawfully intercepting or unlawfully recording another party's electronic communications. 3. PRESERVATION OF PROPERTY. If this is a divorce case, both parties to the marriage are ORDERED to refrain from doing the following acts: 3.1 Destroying, removing, concealing, encumbering, transferring, or otherwise harming or reducing the value of the property of one or both of the parties. 3.2 Misrepresenting or refusing to disclose to the other party or to the Court, on proper request, the existence, amount, or location of any property of one or both of the parties. 3.3 Damaging or destroying the tangible property of one or both of the parties, including any document that represents or embodies anything of value. 3.4 Tampering with the tangible property of one or both of the parties, including any document that represents or embodies anything of value, and causing pecuniary loss to the other party. 3.5 Selling, transferring, assigning, mortgaging, encumbering, or in any other manner alienating any of the property of either party, whether personal property or real estate, and whether separate or community, except as specifically authorized by this order. 3.6 Incurring any indebtedness, other than legal expenses in connection with this suit, except as specifically authorized by this order. 3.7 Making withdrawals from any checking or savings account in any financial institution, for any purpose, except as specifically authorized by this order. 3.8 Spending any sum of cash in either party's possession or subject to either party's control for any purpose except as specifically authorized by this order. 3.9 Withdrawing or borrowing in any manner and for any purpose, from any retirement, profit-sharing, pension, death or other employee benefit plan or employee plan or from any individual retirement account or Keogh account, except as specifically authorized by this order. 3.10 Signing or endorsing the other party's name on any negotiable instrument, check or draft, such as tax refunds, insurance payments, and dividends, or attempting to negotiate any negotiable instrument payable to the other party without the personal signature of the other party. 3.11 Taking any action to terminate or limit credit or charge cards in the name of the other party. 3.12 Taking any action to obtain credit in the name of the other party. 3.13 Entering, operating, or exercising control over the motor vehicle in the possession of the other party. 3.14 Discontinuing or reducing the withholding for federal income taxes on wages or salary while this suit is pending. 3.15 Terminating or in any manner affecting the service of water, electricity, gas, telephone, cable television, internet or other contractual services, such as security, pest control, landscaping, or yard maintenance at the other party's residence or in any manner attempting to withdraw any deposits for service in connection with such services. 3.16 Entering any safe-deposit box in the name of or subject to the control of the other party, whether individually or jointly with others. 3.17 Communicating with the other party's employer or a person with whom the other party has a business relationship without a legitimate purpose. 3.18 Spending any portion of any state or federal income tax refund received by either party, whether or not the parties to the suit have filed jointly or separately, without the written agreement of both parties, or a court order. 3.19 Tampering with the tangible or intellectual property of one or both of the parties, including any document, electronically stored, or recorded information, that represents or embodies anything of value, and causing pecuniary loss to either or both of the parties. 3.20 Destroying, disposing of, or altering any email, text message, video message, chat message, social media message, or other electronic data or electronically stored information relevant to the subject matter of the suit for dissolution of marriage, regardless of whether the information is stored on a hard drive, in a removeable storage device, in cloud storage, or in another electronic storage medium. 3.21 Modifying, changing, or altering the native format or metadata of any electronic data or electronically stored information relevant to the subject matter of the suit for dissolution of marriage, regardless of whether the information is stored on a hard drive, in a removable storage device, in cloud storage, or in another electronic storage medium. 3.22 Deleting any data or content from any social network profile used or created by either party or a child of either party. 3.23 Using any password or personal identification number to gain access to the other party's email account, bank account, social media account, or any other electronic account. 4. SPECIFIC AUTHORIZATIONS IN DIVORCE CASE. If this is a divorce case, both parties to the marriage are specifically authorized to do the following: 4.1 To engage in acts that are reasonable and necessary to the conduct of that party's usual business and occupation. 4.2 To make expenditures and incur indebtedness for reasonable attorney fees and expenses in connection with this suit. 4.3 To make expenditures and incur indebtedness for reasonable and necessary living expenses for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and medical care. 4.4 To make withdrawals from accounts in financial institutions only for the purposes authorized by this order. 5. PERSONAL AND BUSINESS RECORDS IN DIVORCE CASE. If this is a divorce case, both parties to the marriage are ORDERED to refrain from doing the following acts: 5.1 Concealing, destroying, disposing of, or altering any family records, property records, financial records, business records, or any records of income, debts, or other obligations. 5.2 Falsifying any writing or record relating to the property of either party. "Records", as used in the section, include e-mails or other digital or electronic data, whether stored on a computer hard drive, diskette or other electronic storage device or method. 6. INSURANCE IN DIVORCE CASE. If this is a divorce case, both parties to the marriage are ORDERED to refrain from doing the following acts: 6.1 Withdrawing or borrowing, in any manner, all or part of the cash surrender value of life insurance policies on the life of either party or a child of either party, except as specifically authorized by this order. 6.2 Changing or in any manner altering the beneficiary designation of any life insurance policy on the life of either party or a child of either party. 6.3 Canceling, altering, or in any manner affecting any casualty, automobile, or health, dental, or vision insurance policies insuring the parties' property or persons, including the child of either party. 7. PROTECTION OF FAMILY PETS OR COMPANION ANIMALS. 7.1 All parties are to refrain from harming, threatening to harm, interfering with the care, custody, or control of a pet or companion animal that is possessed by a person protected by this order or by a member of the family or household of a person protected by this order. 8. SERVICE AND APPLICATION OF THIS ORDER. 8.1 The Petitioner shall attach a copy of this order to the original petition and to each copy of the petition. At the time the petition is filed, if the Petitioner has failed to attach a copy of this order to the petition and any copy of the petition, the Clerk shall ensure that a copy of this order is attached to the petition and every copy of the petition presented. 8.2 This order is effective upon the filing of the original petition and shall remain in full force and effect as a temporary restraining order for fourteen (14) days after the date of filing of the original petition. If no party contests this order by presenting evidence at a hearing on or before 14 days after the date of the filing of the original petition, this order shall continue in full force and effect as a temporary injunction until further order of the Court. This entire order will terminate and will no longer be effective once the Court signs a final order. 9. EFFECT OF OTHER COURT ORDERS. If any part of this order is different from any part of a protective order that has already been entered or is later entered, the protective order provisions prevail. Any part of this order not changed by some later order remains in full force and effect until the Court signs a final decree. 10. MEDIATION. 10.1 In cases brought under the Family Code, mediation is required before all final orders hearings lasting two (2) hours or longer. Failure to mediate may not be used as an excuse to avoid a final orders hearing. Exceptions may be made in certain cases. Parties seeking an exception must file a verified motion with a certificate of conference. Failure to mediate before trial may result in imposition of sanctions, as permitted by law. 10.2 In all other civil cases, the parties are encouraged to settle their disputes amicably without Court intervention. The parties are encouraged to use alternative dispute resolution methods, such as mediation, to resolve the conflicts that may arise in this lawsuit. This McLennan County Standing Order Regarding Children, Property and Conduct of the Parties shall become effective on the 1st day of June 2026. [signature] Judge Susan Kelly, 54th Judicial District Court [signature] Judge Thomas West, 19th Judicial District Court [signature] Judge Peter Rusek, 74th Judicial District Court [signature] Judge Gina Long, 170th Judicial District Court [signature] Judge Ryan Luna, 414th Judicial District Court [signature] Judge Alan Bennett, 474th Judicial District Court
SEVENTH AMENDED MCLENNAN COUNTY STANDING ORDER REGARDING CHILDREN, PROPERTY AND CONDUCT OF THE PARTIES NO PARTY TO THIS LAWSUIT HAS REQUESTED THIS ORDER. Rather, this order is a Standing Order of the McLennan County District Courts that applies in every divorce suit and every suit affecting the parent-child relationship filed in McLennan County, except cases initiated by the Attorney General of Te
Reviewer note: Composed 2026-09-06 from the TOPICs custody scan (image-only PDF; the standard Texas standing-order instrument, seventh amended edition). County-wide McLennan District Court family standing order; bound to McLennan County. [TRANSCRIBED BY EYE 2026-09-21 (corpus-0920 P12): every page of the registered file (sha256 51157b93e6e5..., 6 page(s), image-only scan; the OCR layer used as a typing base and corrected word by word from the page) read against the rendered file; verbatim, source typos kept, stamps/signatures bracketed; the earlier abstract replaced by the full instrument; confidence high. benchpath-tx-corpus0920-p12-2026-09-21]
Standing order of the 109th Judicial District Court for every pending or later-filed case in Andrews, Winkler and Crane Counties: any attorney or self-represented litigant who uses any form of artificial intelligence for legal research or drafting in a case must, before using AI-generated information in a court submission or proceeding, sign and submit the court's certification form stating that all language, quotations, sources, citations, arguments and legal analysis created or contributed to by generative AI were verified as accurate by a human through traditional (non-AI) legal sources, and acknowledging responsibility and potential sanctions for their or their co-counsel's failure to comply. Effective immediately; in effect until rescinded or replaced.
Standing order of the 109th Judicial District Court for every pending or later-filed case in Andrews, Winkler and Crane Counties: any attorney or self-represented litigant who uses any form of artificial intelligence for legal research or drafting in a case must, before using AI-generated information in a court submission or proceeding, sign and submit the court's certification form stating that all language, quotations, sources, citations, arguments and legal analysis created or contributed to by generative AI were verified as accurate by a human through traditional (non-AI) legal sources, and acknowledging responsibility and potential sanctions for their or their co-counsel's failure to comply. Effective immediately; in effect until rescinded or replaced.