Family Law Attorney

Job Description

Job Description

FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY

Dallas & Paris, Texas

We Don't Need Someone to Fill a Chair. We Need Lawyers Who Want to Build Something.

Carpenter & Associates, P.C. is growing, and our Family Law practice needs more exceptional attorneys.

We are hiring in Dallas and Paris, Texas , and we are interested in everyone from strong family-law litigators to senior attorneys, rainmakers, future office leaders, and established solo practitioners who may be interested in combining their practice with ours.

Our objective is ambitious:

We intend to build one of the premier law firms in Texas.

And we know perfectly well that you don't accomplish that with a fancy website, a slogan, or another office.

You accomplish it by finding great lawyers.

We want attorneys who can take ownership of a case, develop the strategy, lead the legal team, communicate exceptionally well with the client, negotiate when settlement makes sense, and walk into a courtroom ready to fight when it doesn't.

We want attorneys who are ambitious about where their careers are going.

And, yes, we want attorneys with a good sense of humor .

Because family law already provides enough drama. We don't need to manufacture any inside the office.

WHAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY DO

You will have meaningful responsibility for your cases from beginning to end.

That includes:

• Developing litigation and settlement strategy;
• Managing family-law matters from intake through final resolution;
• Directing and working collaboratively with your assigned legal support team;
• Drafting and reviewing pleadings, motions, discovery, orders, decrees, and other substantive legal work;
• Conducting and defending depositions;
• Preparing for and attending mediations;
• Handling temporary orders, contested hearings, bench trials, and, where appropriate, jury trials;
• Negotiating from a position of preparation rather than desperation;
• Providing clients with clear, practical legal advice;
• Keeping clients informed instead of leaving them wondering what their lawyer is doing;
• Identifying issues before they become emergencies; and
• Exercising the professional judgment we hired you to exercise.

We do not want attorneys who simply move files from one deadline to another.

We want attorneys who think.

AUTONOMY WITH ACCOUNTABILITY

Experienced lawyers should be allowed to practice law.

We expect our attorneys to exercise judgment, develop strategy, make recommendations, and take ownership of their cases.

That does not mean practicing on an island.

You will have access to other attorneys, leadership, paralegal support, institutional knowledge, and the resources of a growing firm when a case requires additional firepower.

Our model is simple:

Give good lawyers the support they need, the autonomy they have earned, and clear standards for exceptional performance.

CLIENT COMMUNICATION IS NOT OPTIONAL

You can be brilliant in a courtroom and still be a terrible lawyer for the client if nobody ever knows what is happening.

Our attorneys are expected to communicate.

That means explaining strategy.

Returning calls.

Managing expectations.

Giving clients good news.

Giving clients bad news.

And sometimes telling a client something they do not want to hear because it is what they need to hear.

We want lawyers who can translate complicated legal problems into plain English and establish the confidence that comes from a client knowing:

"My lawyer has this handled."

AND ABOUT THAT SENSE OF HUMOR...

We are serious about our work.

We are serious about our clients.

We are serious about preparation.

We are serious about winning.

We are considerably less serious about ourselves.

We spend too much of our lives at work to build a firm full of people nobody wants to be around.

So professionalism? Absolutely.

Competence? Non-negotiable.

Integrity? Obviously.

But if you are also funny, interesting, personable, and somebody your coworkers wouldn't actively avoid at lunch, that's a significant plus.

DALLAS: BUILD A SERIOUS FAMILY-LAW PRACTICE

For our Dallas office, we are particularly interested in attorneys who want to handle sophisticated litigation, including:

• High-asset and high-income divorce;
• Closely held businesses and professional practices;
• Complex characterization and tracing;
• Contested conservatorship cases;
• Relocation disputes;
• Enforcement and modification litigation;
• Domestic-violence and protective-order issues;
• Complex discovery;
• Depositions;
• Temporary injunctions and temporary orders;
• Bench and jury trials; and
• Cases where creativity and litigation strategy actually matter.

If your goal is to develop a reputation as a serious Texas family-law litigator , we want to help you get there.

PARIS: DON'T JUST JOIN AN OFFICE. HELP LEAD A MARKET.

Our Paris opportunity is different.

We are looking for an attorney who sees what we see:

an opportunity to build a dominant regional practice.

For the right lawyer, Paris provides the opportunity to develop relationships throughout Northeast Texas, build a significant book of business, become a recognized attorney in the community, and potentially assume substantial leadership responsibility as that office grows.

If you have always wanted the opportunity to build something that is partly yours without having to build every piece of the infrastructure yourself, this deserves a conversation.

ALREADY HAVE CLIENTS? EVEN BETTER.

Lawyers who create business create value.

We believe compensation should recognize it.

We are particularly interested in attorneys who:

• Have an existing book of business;
• Generate referrals;
• Have established professional relationships;
• Want to substantially grow their practice;
• Are capable of mentoring junior attorneys; or
• Want leadership responsibility as the firm expands.

Origination, production, collections, leadership, and business development can all be incorporated into compensation.

We are not afraid of lawyers who want to make money.

We want lawyers who create enough value to justify making a lot of it.

OWN A LAW FIRM?

Then this advertisement is also for you.

Carpenter & Associates is interested in confidential conversations with successful solo practitioners and small firms who may be considering the next stage of their practice.

Maybe you love practicing law but are tired of operating an entire business.

Maybe you want better marketing.

More lawyers.

More staff.

More practice areas.

More geographic reach.

Better succession planning.

Or maybe you simply realize that the firm you have spent ten or twenty years building could become substantially more valuable as part of something larger.

We are willing to discuss:

• Firm combinations;
• Practice acquisitions;
• Lateral groups;
• Existing office integration;
• Staff integration;
• Attorneys bringing portable books of business;
• Market-leadership arrangements; and
• Other creative structures that make economic and professional sense.

Successful lawyers do not need to surrender what they have built.

The question is whether we can make it bigger together.

All conversations regarding potential combinations will be confidential.

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

You should probably call us if you are:

• Licensed and in good standing in Texas;
• Experienced in family law;
• Comfortable in court;
• A strong writer;
• An excellent communicator;
• Strategically minded;
• Organized;
• Responsive;
• Comfortable directing staff;
• Capable of making decisions;
• Interested in professional and financial growth;
• Willing to be accountable for your results;
• Someone other talented people enjoy working with; and
• In possession of at least a functioning sense of humor.

WHO PROBABLY SHOULDN'T?

If your preferred litigation strategy is "hopefully this settles," this may not be the right place.

If returning client phone calls feels beneath you, it definitely isn't.

If every mistake is somebody else's fault, please apply to one of our competitors.

If you believe "good enough" is the appropriate standard for legal work, we're probably not a match.

And if you manage to create more drama inside the law firm than our clients bring through the front door, family law has already met its quota.

THIS ISN'T A REPLACEMENT HIRE.

We are hiring because we are growing.

More clients.

More cases.

More opportunities.

More geographic reach.

And larger ambitions.

Today we need attorneys.

Tomorrow, some of those attorneys need to be team leaders, office leaders, rainmakers, mentors, and potentially partners in the continued growth of Carpenter & Associates.

If that sounds more interesting than simply taking another associate position somewhere else, we should talk.

Carpenter & Associates, P.C.

Dallas | Paris | Growing Across Texas

Trial Attorneys. Results Driven Legal Guidance.

DON'T JUST TAKE ANOTHER JOB.

BUILD SOMETHING.

\nCompany Description

Carpenter & Associates, P.C. is a Texas-based trial law firm representing individuals, families, and businesses in complex legal matters. The firm handles family law, civil and business litigation, criminal defense, probate, estate planning, real estate, and other litigation-focused matters. With offices in Dallas and Paris and plans for continued expansion, Carpenter & Associates is building a statewide platform focused on exceptional legal work, strong client service, courtroom readiness, and long-term professional growth.

Company Description

Carpenter & Associates, P.C. is a Texas-based trial law firm representing individuals, families, and businesses in complex legal matters. The firm handles family law, civil and business litigation, criminal defense, probate, estate planning, real estate, and other litigation-focused matters. With offices in Dallas and Paris and plans for continued expansion, Carpenter & Associates is building a statewide platform focused on exceptional legal work, strong client service, courtroom readiness, and long-term professional growth.