Houston Divorce Lawyer Blog

Tilden Moschetti’s San Francisco Family Law Blog had an interesting post showing an example of how inaccurate internet reporting on legal subjects can create a lot of misinformation. The underlying story was about comedian Steve Harvey’s divorce and the later claim by his ex-wife that she had been defrauded during the divorce process. While I don’t claim to know much about the details of that particular case, I do have some thoughts on Sharon Woodson-Bryant’s (the original author) statements on Texas family law, as reported in the Los Angeles Wave on January 3, 2008.

Ms. Woodson-Bryant’s premise is that Texas courts are generally very biased against women. A whole lot of Texas men wish that were the case, but it is just not true. Ms. Woodson-Bryant’s article stated that since Texas was not a community property state (false) that Mrs. Harvey would not be able to get 50% of the property like she could in California.

The reality is that not only is Texas a community property state, but unlike California the division of property is not automatically 50/50. In fact, Texas wives and moms frequently get disproportionate divisions of the community property (sometimes 60% or more) based on fault, needs of the children, disparity of earning capacity, etc.

Don’t believe everything you read.